THE TOWN CRIER

Bindlestiff with bonebreak skin and laptop,
batteries running low. The bilge water
of past crimes rises stanky. This fleapit

feeling won’t last past dawn. Hiding below
the wall of mansions in raw red beard—a hank
for every anger—I fight each endless night

with the bitter blanket of fog. I’m an issue.
The neighbors show concern (with my hygiene)
and grow choleric re: litter. Trashed

inventory of expectations, binding energy
of failures rope me to my own cracked mast.
I’m hardly a molecule. What comfort in quarks?

If you cleaned the bacteria from my brain,
would I be less bioluminescent? The silver
handcuffs clink off for the last time, but

still stain. A rust of hours killed and schools
ticking like rotten pumpkins in snow. The small
thermonuclear device in my shirt pocket

is no Irish jig, no “Journey’s End,” or bingo
cry with me the winner, but is my shot
at getting clean, permanently, like the sun.