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There's a boy wearing a helmet

rolling up the concrete ramp

just outside the window. I wonder

where he wants to go?

He can go in or he can go out

but he can't go home because

he's already here.  He rolled

past a an older man, shirtless, gray

chest hair and mottled patches of

silvery black on his back. On the

back of his chair there was a Pittsburgh

Steelers flag hoisted and swaying

to the rhythms of his delicate rocking

and the feeble wind.  I can tell

that they are not friends. He's

much too old to relate to the boy

except they share the experience

of calloused hands and dirty diapers

and the same feeling of watching

someone who still pretends to love them

drive away just slightly, the ever

slightest depression of a foot on a

vertical pedal, too fast. If he looks 


up at the sun just enough, 
his helmet will catch the tear 
from the left and right cheek and 
collect just at the top

of his smooth ear and the

bottom of his hair.