he is

the man is gone
who made the unfriendly streets
a little less chilly.

but you can read his face
in angry tiremarks left on
the late night road by 
guzzling gasoline.

don’t bother talking to yourself
to replace him. only three
will hear; you, your larynx
and a bemused passerby.

follow the blind man

tapping the
night road in an echoing morse
code of mocking inarticulacy

who is going to the hospital
in search of his guide dog

lost in the night

barking after your absentee friend.

he will be in the swollen emergency
room. the clicking depressions
left on the whitewashed floor by
rushed doctors will be your trail.

stay on track even when
they tell you not to leave
he is trying to speak through

the metallic clangs of old

scalpels striking the operating

tables.

he is whistling through the zipper
of a homeless man undoing his
stained Raiders’ jacket.

he is crawling in the dim memories
of the dangerous tanned amnesiac
hitchhiker who came in to speak
blurred confusion.

he is whispering in the whisky breath
of a drunk forgotten by family and
friends who has been in the waiting
room for days.

he is the hope in the unkempt laces
of the frayed boot worn
by the wanderer along the highway.

when you find him dial 9.
and then call me