we watched him run from dogs
on his route and return
home
with nothing and slapped
they made him swallow okra from a can
roll on the floor with glass and fig leaves
and
he grew small inside banana skin
muttered fireflies riding
swiftly the shapes of dragons
traced on paper the weird ideas of loons
this reader of
clouds who then and now rides
a news route, closes the door, and in some
gray dungeon bubbles rise in glowing tubes
keeps his dead things close
and the doors closed at midnight
the curtain drops when we look
his way