Vintage Sherry: Cowboy Hat and Cigarette

Note: I still don't have access to my junior high/high school poems so, in the meantime, I am sharing a poem written over 3 years ago. It was the first poem I posted on my old blog, with an explanation.

*~*~*~*
After the reading, I was walking down Broadway towards the 72nd subway stop when I saw a man sitting in the dark, at the corner of a church sidewalk, holding a "Help Me, I'm Homeless" sign. What struck me about him was his cowboy hat and, what looked like, a cigarette casually hanging from his lips. In the dark, his blue jacket looked like denim.

Here's a rough sketch of a poem I jotted down in the subway car:

Cowboy hat and cigarette
you, luminous you
I know you; you are that part
I lost, that part I once knew.

You and your
'Help Me, I'm Homeless'
sign.

Blue jacket shadow,
church corner, sitting dark,
crouching for a prayer,
the cigarette not yet lit, or maybe,
extinguished,
praying for a light

Remember how it once was, full,
when life needed no
cigarettes to light or extinguish
the moment, the possibility?

You, I know you, that part I
once lost, that part still
mimicking the dark.


Written: 4/6/06