By DON SHARE
Hobo, Bono, boneheap.
I mutilate dandelions in the sun,
rattle my rake like a saber
When Michelle-my-neighbor,
over compost, opines
that Aqualung’s a classic;
“At least I think so. U2?”
Does she mean: me, too?
In the foul rag and compost pile
Of my creaky abdomen I rustle
all the leaves of my locomotive breath
to agree because anything you say,
Michelle, must be so! We live
in a time of need. Your hair always
looks brushed. Our conversations
Are abrupt. And yet…
The children grow and play over time
like centipedes behind our sofas;
The tools I never use seem
delightful on their pegs in the shed,
like the hopes I sharpened
Once beside the gleaming rails
as a schoolboy, a hiker, a little hobo never
far from someone’s back yard trampoline.
Don Share is Senior Editor of Poetry. His books include Squandermania (Salt Publishing), Union (Zoo Press), Seneca in English (Penguin Classics), and most recently a new book of poems, Wishbone (Black Sparrow) and Bunting’s Persia (Flood Editions, a 2012 Guardian Book of the Year.
