Wild Orphan

Blandly mother

takes him strolling

by railroad and by river

-he's the son of the absconded

hot rod angel-

and he imagines cars

and rides them in his dreams,

so lonely growing up among

the imaginary automobiles

and dead souls of Tarrytown

to create

out of his own imagination

the beauty of his wild

forebears-a mythology

he cannot inherit.

Will he later hallucinate

his gods? Waking

among mysteries with

an insane gleam

of recollection?

The recognition-

something so rare

in his soul,

met only in dreams

-nostalgias

of another life.

A question of the soul.

And the injured

losing their injury

in their innocence

-a cock, a cross,

an excellence of love.

And the father grieves

in flophouse

complexities of memory

a thousand miles

away, unknowing

of the unexpected

youthful stranger

bumming toward his door.