About A Friend Named A. K. Poem by RIC BASTASA

if you only knew where he lives
a dark corner of this hospital ward
his hands and feet jacketed at times
during times of seizures and fits

if you could have only seen how he
sits for hours on the floor beside an iron door
how the wind that touches him pains him
like his skin is removed from this flesh and bone
if you could have heard his screams and then
when nurses rush to him to give his dose
of sanity back through the usual injections

if you could have only felt the beatings of his
heart and his tremors running through all his fingers

if you could have only seen him on lucid intervals
how he scribbled his lost lines through his laptop
spending hours recalling what should have been forgotten

my dear friend if you have the heart of someone human
you could not have called him moron
for whatever he is, he is part of you and me and us and this world

if you have seen him all alone trying to meet his soul halfway
between a murmur and an incantation

you could not have said such a very cruel word