Truth

•

Outside the burger joint where I was taking my lunch break,
a man stood in the patchy grass alongside the drive-thru lane,
a stoic, helpless ash tree holding a cardboard sign
with a poorly structured haiku: Homeless/ Vietnam Vet/ Help.

Though there was no wind, he bobbed a little, as if
his sign held the weight of the past forty-plus years.
It was summer: the sun’s nuclear hate was as close
as it could get to us, the seagulls struggled to nest

in parking lots, the river had nearly regained it’s blue hue.
And if I wanted to, I could lie and tell you I was reading
Weigl between bites of carbon-copied hamburgers,
between sips of soda with the ice and sugar

I’d spent the sweltering day dreaming of. No,
when I noticed the homeless man, his face burnt
to bark, his hair matted and manged, I was reading
a tattered newspaper, struggling to ignore the women

at the table next to me, their fine designer suits and dresses,
their babble about their office jobs at one of the high-rises
that define my city’s skyline. We were a year and a half away
from the next election and this nation wanted nothing more

than to enjoy the quiet. Reluctant cars churned
through the drive-thru, few stopping to see beyond
the man’s stringy beard or the moon of sweat
on his greasy shirt. The women next to me started laughing,

at his ripped pants, at Vietnam, at their children’s
neo-hippy teachers and their arguments against
our country’s latest wars. I’d be lying if I said
I went to him, brought him inside and bought him

a hamburger for any reason other than to see the look
on those women’s faces. I held his hand and felt fingers
more callused than my own. I can’t say my charity
was celebrated. The women took the number

off my work truck and complained to my boss.
Summer boiled concrete until it steamed. The man’s eyes
remained rooted in a past I could only read about.
The truth is the homeless don’t write haiku.

His sweat wasn’t my sweat and sweat only looks
like a moon to those desperate to romanticize struggle.
My metaphor for him only makes sense if you’ve seen
the destruction of the emerald ash borer up close.