One Every 24 #7

The Only Son Returns from Traffic School

I was driving my mom's car back to the suburbs after traffic school
I was an errant boy, drove reckless. Hence the traffic school
I was in downtown Detroit, somewhere around eighteen
and probably wearing shades
I might have had some grass in my pocket
stains on the worn thin thighs of my jeans
hair well past my collar and a black concert T

He was an explosion of grey rags, the wild haired and mad
homeless man staggering down the trashed street
where I waited at the stoplight, my tape deck most likely
turned up way too loud. Without hitching a step
he whipped it out, let the piss fly across the sidewalk
the front of his pants, all the while ranting
some indecipherable magic language of despair that seemed to hold
the dark alley of every secret pain my teenage
brain hungered to know. The light turned. I believed
I had somewhere to go. Depending on who you asked
he'd already been there.