Ned Balbo

If it was free, you taught, I ought to grab it as you did: McDonald’s napkins, pens, and from the school where you were once employed as one of two night shift custodians, the metal imitation wood wastebasket still under my desk. But it was sugar that you took most often as, annoyed on leaving Dunkin’ Donuts, pancake house, and countless diners, I felt implicated in your pleasure, crime, and poverty. I have them still, your Ziploc bags of plunder, yet I find today, among the loose change in my pockets, packets crushed or faded— more proof of your lasting legacy.

Once, boarding the train to New York City, The aisle crowded and all seats filled, I glimpsed An open space—more pushing, stuck in place— And then saw why: a man, face peeled away, Sewn back in haste, skin grafts that smeared like wax Spattered and frozen, one eye flesh-filled, smooth, One cold eye toward the window. Cramped, shoved hard, I, too, passed up the seat, the place, and fought on Through to the next car, and the next, but now I wonder why the fire that could have killed him Spared him, burns scarred over; if a life Is what he calls this space through which he moves, Dark space we dared not enter, and what fire Burns in him when he sees us move away.