By Daniel Reuben Barlow

Tom Brody, how you fall behind
 
and lag in front of honest men
 
who plod the dusty vagrant trail
 
from town to town in hope of work–
 
who ply the land for meat and bread.
 

 
And none will break the shuffle bowed
 
surrender of three feet ahead,
 
or pray gray runes of gravel stone,
 
but husband spit within dry mouths–
 
and fixate on three feet ahead.
 

 
The waif with blood wept on her thigh,
 
the young boy porting plate and cup,
 
the wife despaired of threadbare miles,
 
who fixates on one meal ahead–
 
a thousand times they pass you by.
 

 
Tom Brody, you have over-slept,
 
and in the wake of summer’s haze
 
game finches squabble in the stream,
 
squirrels staccato up your ribs–
 
to nibble acorns from the tree.
 

 
And none who knew the vagrant days
 
recall your face or know your name.