JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Once I met him coming down the way

all formless, cobweb, wing, fin, rags

who, having avoided greeting, wandered on

a waif, a ghost, spider dangling wind on silk

       

And now I see him there almost every day

waiting for his fly or whatever it is, on walls,

across all things, skeleton, backgrounded as

a stage hand flitting across behind the curtain

 

And when the curtain rises, falls or night descends

he’s gone as if he never was, my hairy friend

he’s a fish in my eye that swims across the world

who when I turn to greet, just drifts on with a laugh

 

I think perhaps he never was.  Oh there he is again.