Tony told me he saw a grey shadow

   In dead Autumn afternoon.

He was walking down Sunset Ave and

There it lay on the tracks,

   Smoking or eating something.

It didn’t have much to its name–

No title to lean back on,

No ego to show so widely to the world.

No, it just lay

Cold and passive as storm clouds 

   That couldn’t bother to wake.

Some asked if it was waiting for something

Like a train, whose tracks he spread himself 

So regally over, like a draped red carpet craving

The footfalls of desperate movie stars, or

A tiger-skin rug, mouth agape, 

Waiting for the arm of a foal

He covered the same space but

The difference was in how he lay

   Void of desire

   Immune to consequence

   Numb, but never able to feel

   In the first place.

So when people ask Tony – everyone’s always asking!

Why he’s 32, jobless, and off his mind

   Every Tuesday

He says he wants to be like the grey shadow

He saw the other day

          O                  / –  /

 Both nothing        / – /

       And            / – /

 Everything     / – /

He tells me the story when I ask

(I’m always asking)

Why he says the whole world speaks

   Through concrete

“When everything’s falling and

So is the season, stand still

Try looking down by your feet

You’ll see the Grey shadow too.”

And then he leaves when the clock strikes 2,

Trailing

    Grey smoke

             Behind him.