The Archangel in a City of Men
       

may rise at 2 or 3 a.m. —an insomniac's insomniac—
to pace a cramped, dingy, rented room then make
a pot of tea he doesn't want to drink.

By the time he gets down to the street, he is an innocent.
Memory is what comes back to him in the night
of this new town that may be hot or cold

or something between. Sometimes he strips all the way
to skin, not fully knowing what he knows to be true,
that no one will call out to him from a stoop

or sagging porch. No one will open a door and speak his
name: not to mock, not to offer succor. And this too
comes back, though he doesn't yet know why:

A naked man on a silent, empty street.
No one will call the police.

Tweet

Copyright © 2014 Phebe Davidson All rights reserved
from What Holds Him to this World
Ninety-Six Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission