When it says it's late
May but the cold morning mist off
the lake is so strong
and stiff—that it engulfs
every lonesome limestone tenement
tower on the horizon,
somebody somewhere
must have done something wrong.
A lone prisoner, perhaps
a scrawny and
dismal bespectacled man
in threadbare vestments,
who's breakfasting
out there in that distant dim shade
penitently on day-
old coffee and some green
thumbnail of a banana
by a filmy and barred window
that overlooks an endless
maze of alleyways—where,
apart from the low-swooping
gunmetal gray seagulls,
the few birds his failing
ears can still hear aren't singing
spontaneous songs—but blind-
ly rehearsing the day's
designated canticle.
