James Baloian: Homeless

The roads all came back
bringing with them
the gray weather of old coats
A flammable moon
wrinkles the landscape
into blacks and whites
Winter wanders in
on the breath of an empty page

From an old photograph
I listen to a black man
play the clarinet to crows
silhouetted into musical notes
between telephone wires
My feet turn the earth
as I try to keep my head
from the wind's inevitable noose.


James Baloian. This poem has appeared in Ship of Fools.