i had
two dollars
in my wallet
i needed one for parking
i gave the other
to a man in the homeless
shanty
on mitchell avenue
the one right on the sidewalk
by the exit ramp
i felt compelled to do something
but
i didnt give him the money
because he asked me for some change
he didn’t
or because he was in a wheel chair
and had been forgotten
it wasn’t that his eyes were the color
blue turns after it has seen hell
and it wasn’t because most of him
had been blown away
i was saying thank you to him with
half my meager fortune because
he couldn’t have been more
than 22 0r 23 years old
and he
was
still
wearing
his
dog
tags
and
army
jacket