He waits in bee’s bliss and coyote mint.
Ankle-high shrubs crowd the center divide
where the road from the coffee shop slants
into a swell of traffic lights, a flood tide
of turn signals. His hair is dirty, off-white,
knotted at the back. His face sun-weathered.
It’s easy to miss him.
The way he waits
as if a shrub or small tree. His eyes feather
the passersby. Blue jeans ragged, a mess
of broken fingernails edging cardboard,
lifting it chest high. Its message: God bless.
Sometimes I look away, silent and hard.
Sometimes I nod, greet him, pass a bill.
Always I see him—as the drowning always will.