Gray goatee, a clean thick backpack with newness and black leather Written on it. Designer glasses and a pair of jeans worn and washed for weeks. This is the way a man refuses help, sees himself a victim of circumstances. Years of crazy landlords and lost jobs, he’s grown frustrated and clenches fists Bitching against the Starbucks empire, and he’s aged. He refuses the nearest shelter for weeks protecting his Macbook from theft. I am seeing with glasses of judgment. Some send prayers To a God indifferent to starvation and worry, with hope for an intervention, But how can he ask for help in a social contract that binds one to death? He is counting the words in a poem, eyeing the leaves falling diagonally in the breeze. Death as beautiful, and he says, the tree’s still alive, the tree’s still alive. The world a blue globe of forgetting. The homeless sometimes bitter, Enraged, a plastic bag of belongings held on to as if it were life. I’d like the language of rainfall, the patter of magic, but it’s like this, We can’t see ourselves some days. The path lit with a strange fire, Yellow leaves cluttering the gutter. He walks with tennis shoes, lit With red shoe laces.