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A Man Out Of Time

The man bent forwards

Hunkered over the aching cave of his chest

And stared at the frayed blue aglet

On his left shoelace, untied.

He didn’t bother to fix it, just looked

At the end of the line

As if held some bitter truth,

Some rancid hangover fix with eggs

You have to force yourself to drink

As a consequence, 

As a punishment,

For past wrongs.

I saw him once,

Catching the M train on Sixth Avenue.

He had his hands tucked in his jacket pockets.

He carried his broad frame

Like a school child lost in the bustling Brooklyn crowd

And I wondered, if under all his stature,

He still was.

I caught his eye as we boarded,

And saw the blues

Of a jazz band loved and long gone

And I longed to know what song

Was running through his head. 

He rode the train until

The end of the line,

Then rose, swayed as if ambushed 

By some forgotten memory

And disappeared among the gray faces

Of a Tuesday night commute. 

But he’s here now,

Outside some Brooklyn Heights apartment,

Looking like he woke to find the world moved on

And left him seventy years behind. 

He’s crying now, still bent over 

Sitting stooped on the stairs

Trying to stifle sobs that won’t stop coming

And I’m struck

By that that same awful image of a boy

Abandoned in a metro station,

Weathering this world all alone,

Until his fortitude reaches

The end of the line.

I still see him sometimes, 

In weary passer-bys,

In students scribbling away past midnight,

In the old man feeding birds bits of rye.

And sometimes,

When howling December winds

Have blown hope away like tossed tumbleweeds,

His reflection blinks back at me in the bathroom mirror

While I’m washing my hands

And the water slips through my fingers