Simple man, I

Am a bagman going to the fair,

My sacks afloat around me like

A life preserver ring.

My glad hand grasps the turnstile

As I drift by your pocket and preen,

Hoping to catch your eye

In my polyurethane leisure suit

And my other thumb up my pie.

(Take me home for supper, ma’am?

Watch your poodle pee my pants?)

I found my nap in the New York Times

And breakfast in the street;

I ride trains to their terminals

‘Cause nowhere’s really

Neat.

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R Hamilton (they/them) is returning to poetry as a means of filling the vacuum left after a fifty-year career backstage in the performing arts, a retirement handily but unexpectedly coincident with the pandemic. Since then, Hamilton’s work has been/will be presented by Boats Against the Current, Caesura, Dollar Store, Ekphrastic Review, Intangible, and Nightingale & Sparrow, among others.