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FOR WHEN YOU ARE DOWN ABOUT VARIOUS IGNOMINIOUS FATES

O bike thief in Las Vegas run to ground on TV

by a one-legged cop, I will tell nobody

of the shame which racked you.

Made your mugshot a study

of failed ambition aplenty.  But,

I should be honest.  Whatever you felt,

however you rawly ached,

it won’t be found here.  Let us be clear:

I’m making you up. Assigning your heart

grand disappointment.  Naming you

Russell, or Leonard, maybe Estus–

not all at once, but as my mood goes

I speak good advice to you with great authority.

In the moment you’re knocked

from the suburban kid’s mountain bike

(and how could you take it)

you’re clobbered by the young veteran,

his lungs about to explode into the clip-on microphone.

I’d like to step in

with my mouth full of the obvious:

you do not want to be this.

When I broke my neck,

fez-capped Shriners came to our house,

looking old and white and sad.

They gave me a TV,

and my brother an orange foam football.

Twenty five years later

that set went dark forever,

and nobody would repair it.

I think of the day I went with my brother

in his horrible Camaro

to buy a new television.

He helped me stand,

bracing my knees against his,

then we turned to the unfolded wheelchair.

Over my brother’s shoulder,

I could see an old man watching,

maybe he was a Shriner, too,

ready to come over, offer his strength–

“Can I help you, son?”

When I said no, his face was grave;

I looked down to see that

my jeans had fallen

and my legs were white in the sun.

Which is a way of saying

that I was half-naked

in a Best Buy parking lot,

once.  Don’t forget 

the pained old man,

the crappy Camaro, 

the Shriners who occasioned it all.

Well, not all:  I, too, was knocked

from a bike, from a life,

once upon a time.  Russell, foolish thief, I think of you

each time I’m caught.