Corrugated suit
Straight lines adorning his boxy frame
The man's chest rises and falls,
A beautiful pendulum of time.
His hair falls onto his head like a perfect semi-circle of fringe
Tattered, fading, regal

We watch the world through his eyes,
Halfway slid across the openings of his face.
His eyebrows thick and unrelenting.
Like ink brush strokes, the square kind
Those will exist until he is shattered
Until he lies on his deathbed.
Even then they will only dim.

A straight edge mouth stretched across his face
A million deliberate or muttered words said:
a testimony of the unforgiving seasons
And he won't break unless you smile at him,
Unless he can see you raw.

Mr. Levery just got here from Duluth.
A boring plane ride, stale food
A tedious taxi ride to this hideous barrack of a place.
But this has been his lately, his recently
His most easily recalled memory and gripe
Visiting his photographer friend
And it only takes him a few hours to relent and wink.
"Oh life has been so taxing, Jeanette"

She points outside to the Davenport daytime
"Marcel you've got so much to do still."
He cannot take his eyes off the window's story.
Slowly, she flickers.
She unbuttons her camera case.
"Marcel, I want you to hold still."
He is still.
Of course he is still.
He cannot take his eyes off the day.
The sky is this translucent shade of gray
There are dozens of layers to those clouds
Like pastry, like baklava.
Somewhere in there, the clouds have whiteness, filled with sun.
"I want to live there. Just spend a few years there."

"Hold still."
Oh how can you stay with your eyes fixed on the newspaper
The cat, the television screen.
Why isn't everyone else stopped and staring
At the baklava clouds on this day? Am I the only one hypnotized and longing
To fly up and up and up?

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