A CITY MOMENT
Trying to listen
close by
to an open heart
when the frozen breath
of a homeless man
strikes the dissolved hour
of its innocence
by reproaching me
under my Salvation Army
red scarf
near a graffiti wall,
carrying my jazz violin
along an insomniac city
not knowing
what secret moves
if his bleeding hand
will cause his demise
along the wharf
when I notice a top gun
in his merchant marine
outfit of a lost sailor
with Popeye tattoes,
surprised at his memory
of being an actor
as he quotes Brecht
in his once thicker visage
of a Chaplin mustached
contour and expression
by the retired sun,
trying to survive
like him
against this cold.