In Tacoma the old man
crossing Wright Park
will not use a path
and ignores the statue
of Schiller, a German
poet who never visited
Tacoma--his loss. I can't
find a verb to say what
the old man does as he
goes up the slope
to the conservatory. It is
his own peculiar old
white-haired way of walking,
wearing a blue windbreaker
on a hot afternoon. Perfect
verbs and muscular
buttocks belong to the young.
A woman in orange shoes
floats past him. Her profile
is regal. Now someone full
of Jesus moves through the park
preaching to purple-eyed drunks.
Acorns drop like hail pellets.
A three-year-old roll down a
slope, bedazzled, giggling.
The old man smiles at this,
arrives at the conservatory,
cough and spits.
hans ostrom 2021
