he’s folded against the urine-soaked wall

like a note left in the rain, head down,

greasy gray hair a bad luck charm

                                                               I want

to turn away

so that I don’t fall into the hole he fell in

ambiguity circles his head like a fly

he is a bomb that could explode

            a body on a stretcher

decorated with flashing lights

red and blue

                       he is me

                                       he is you

                                                         he is

a warning from rich men with guns:

          don’t let go your ladder’s rung

This poem by Mike Wilson recently appeared in Hitchlit Review, Vol. 3, Issue 2, Autumn 2020