Draw The Man

Draw the man I’ve seen a million times.

Each time I meet him he knows who I am

But I don’t recognize him until he’s gone.

Give him rough hands and wild hair.

Give him the neck of a bottle in his fingers,

An old leather bag on his back.

He has grown old before his time,

Seen the world in the droplet of a small town.

He has learned the curve and cunning of a ship,

The full fixation of ocean breeze.

He is unfamiliarly at home

On this ground.

He could sink into the trees and

Not look back from the vertical press

Of light and negative space.

Watch him turn his head to the sky,

Listening to the eternal sound of gray weather.

He tastes storms in the wind and isn’t frightened.

I have seen him look up from his Saturday special

In the diner at the pharmacy, always with the same eyes.

I’ve seen him walk from the hardware store with a paper bag,

Over to his junker and peel into the traffic.

Seen him turn the corner in the shipyard,

Cast an expert eye over nautical problem or two.

Draw the man who changes in his sameness.