Ode to a Leather Jacket
Janna Tierney
O
A grey morning settles
like a still, thick foam,
washed up on a lichened cliff.
The concrete overpass
towers invisible in the fog,
a cathedral citadel
over its mighty king.
Bound in leather,
the ancient veteran
holds court over his lowly domain:
a village of soggy plastic bags,
interlaced with newspaper barnacles.
Eighteen-wheel freighters chug,
roaring overhead
across the shipping lanes in
while a dark, dampened cardboard sign,
like supple leather,
greets passing whales and mini-vans
with a melting smile and blessing.
He lifts his orange, glowing wand:
a solitary lighthouse in the suffocating fog.
tar and nicotine, the pollution of the ether sea.
The man himself is a rusted
warrior of past glories,
of tarnished medallions pawned
to fuel the fumes of sedation,
his numb wounds rubbed
by the salt of humility.
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