Below a bridge, aside the track:
An open tarp, complete with lack
Of all we earn to buy but save
An Army cot and brick-a-back.
I kept a-pacing toward my lunch
(adept at facing not the punch
of loudly-passing dangerous cars).
Avoid the Noise had been my hunch.
To walk at noon was all I meant,
Affirm my fracture, lone intent,
Yet as I walked the tracks today
Said Frugal Sight attention lent.
Beneath the highway overpass:
A man, belongings all en masse,
A-sheltered mid his canvas tent
And (if I would not scorn the Cross),
I thought to self, “Upon return,
I’ll pause amid the noontide burn
And ask if I might sit a spell
And humble-like, his story learn."
Thus on my journey’s second leg
I left the tracks to pardon beg,
“Excuse me sir, but might I ask,
For strangers’ cap, have you a peg?”
“Sure, have a seat,” he said amid
The smell of roasting meat, to bid
Me have a drink of grapefruit juice
With vodka splash, and so I did.
There's naught unfitting I could share,
While sitting in his second chair,
We traded talk that most should say
Would qualify as standard fare.
He reads this book of Spanish grammar,
Mine is French, we each did stammer,
Leaving, briefly, common English,
Spanglish, Frenglish, mid the clamor:
Speeding tires above, I – 10,
Apres-midi (rush hour din),
Broken only when I walked
To buy some orange juice. For when
That grapefruit juice he poured for me?
(to mix with Russian ‘tater-tea)
From humble can, once 1 of 6,
That was his last. So plain to see.
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