Moon Man

Midtown – the hotel windows
are narrow eyes, taking in
the high skies and the bare brown brick,
early, before the day time haze,
the almost ice, precise glint of the glass;
November, already
the wind and the cars and the honking
near misses are chasing each other
down the avenues. The moon's a wink.

At every traffic light, the same man,
pale neon, white blue:
held together, so many dots joined up, elusive
and dependable, waited for; half his life's
a blank: a dark transformer board
above square digit fingers, a red hand raised,
a ‘no’ no one ignores, falling away to
dayglo pearls, an angel without wings,
gelatin silver, an almost friend...