[Don Schaeffer]

Ninety Seconds at KP

The little girl friend
takes a leap out of the bus
with her wirey fingers,
bare pale flesh against the cold.
Then he comes out
tall with his hoody almost
biblical. She takes a toke
of his cigarette and vanishes
jaywalking skillfully
across the avenue.

Then he turns
and I get a look at his face.
He is tall and lean
and those eyes
seem so unchanging,
still young but
eternally old, pupils
sunk low in the eye-display
as if resting.

Nothing was ever really right,
his eyes say. And nothing will
ever change. I must be cautious,
his eyes say. I must be
dangerous