posture of calling

AP Photo/Roberto Candia

standing on the lip of the curb as if poised to dive into that carless curve of tar, darker, darker, darker into dark like a crow landing upon a fading bruise, his short sleeved shirt is black, hunched in front of the backwards stenciled letters are cursive behind his back, what the feminine fails to spell he cannot face and what he cannot face has curved him toward a question as he stands there clasping a silver phone to his ear as if listening might fail, the bees, the bees. bent there on the sidewalk where few answers are found like a homeless man hoping a stray dollar could change his world, wearing flipflops & shorts like a diver with second thoughts, receiving last minute instruction from god, the most useless coach. beside him there is an elm tree whose ancient rivulets of bark flow like the slowest, most inexorable mudslide. he could be saved along that curve, lined with trees heavy with green,  listening for what light escapes those greedy fists clenched above them, leaning all together toward the hard bruise, the evidence of abuse they are circled around, choking on the accumulated ash of an overcast morning, the death of all fathers passing into the throbbing blue while the empty brackets await their appointed wheels. the road is empty for entire passages of sobbing solo violin. your eyes accept what silence the city offers as you wonder what news a man could receive on sunday morning that would make him consider such a dive?