He said his name was Art
The old man
Sitting on the park bench
A Cornucopia of stench
The man shifts his weight
And the bench fizzles
Like a dying anthem
Or the stirrings of wreckage
In the aftermath of a bomb
His sallow eyes
Pay dead-fish attention
To fluttering pigeons
Just outside his grasp
Every day, the man is given a sandwich
By his caregiver
To eat in the park with the birds
While she cleans his room
He gives them the bread and eats the baloney
Even though passersby tell him it is bad
For the birds
“I eat it all the time, and I’m just fine,”
The man says
