AT DUSK THE OTHER DAY

I saw a guy on the sidewalk. He looked like he had just climbed out of a coal mine. All his nooks and crannies were filled with inky resin. At first he was propped up against the brick wall, passively squatting and nodding off like a child in a car seat. He must have been dreaming about the opiates he had put in his arm.

And then without warming he sprung up and started to anxiously and deftly fondle a nearby fire hydrant. He was treating it like a console to a spaceship. Or else he was a ship captain at the wheel. Whatever he was, I couldn’t rip my eyes from him and his covert business with the hydrant.