Lucky Poem by Jason C. Brown

I exited the subway
and spied a homeless man sleeping
on the platform: white, bearded, middle-
class and middle-aged looking,
like an English professor, his mouth frozen
open, lying still and heavy on his
back, prostrate, on a make-shift
bed, like a
stone.

I witnessed the frieze
and felt unsettled-

content men sleep like that,
drunk men,
men with no loose ends or
unsolved problems at the
end of the day.

No place to live or
food to eat, nickels
at his feet and this man
sleeps at peace
without a care in the world.

I stared, thrown,
then walked past him up the
stairs, his image stubborn
in my mind.

I envy this man, I thought.
I feel envy in my bones

and suddenly I froze-

the peculiar heat on that
late-autumn morning made
me damp within my pits-

Will I ever be happy?
Will I know real love?