I just saw him, had to slow way down to be sure.
Whatever the opposite of remission is, this was it.
He stood there, an urban Robinson Crusoe,
sunburn, barefoot, shirt in tatters, hair and beard electrified,
drinking the dregs of coffee cups at a sidewalk cafe.
Jabbing a finger in the air, giving the ginger to City Hall
to the the bank that calls itself Citizens’
to the boarded-up Union Station,
stranded on a trackless railbed.
He was keening in almost-Gaelic.
It might have been the wake of Parnell.
I remember how he once inspired the other vets.
So clean and sober in a borrowed jacket and tie,
prim as a bond broker and full of jittery pride.
As long as Haldol kept the neural juices
from scorching his brain like lye,
he remained my prize patient. May success story.
Before he took off, signed himself out
as the shifts were changing,
he slipped this message under my office door:
Dogs no longer bark at me.
In my handbook, this state
is referred to as bliss.
But my time here is short.
I’m aging faster now, burning
up along the primitive circuitry.
Already older than
my mother and father put together,
and with so much
work left for me to do.
One more revolution in Kennedy Plaza.
Now that the light is red and everything has stopped,
his words come into audible focus.
Those pigs those fucking pigs they leave you with nothing.
He begins to cross.
Then the light goes mercifully green and I gun it.