Imaginary clinks add a steady beat to
figure-eights of pleading,
passersby stuck on shuffle,
rarely pausing to add a breakfast McMuffin
to the playlist of an addict with no teeth ­anyway.

My lips will swallow his lonely melody like a dime bottle of Absolut,
sputtering out unrefined harmony for starved chords to feed from,
so if only that nice businessman's red
stoplight would spare a few
crumpled notes,
he could sleep soothed.

He wishes for me to sing the sounds of
his silence,
but I'm forbidden to produce noise.

I gaze with him,
past the moon to the end of the
solar system,
into cerulean dreams of warm socks and
a glittering asteroid belt buckling over
beer gut belly.

He forgot that Pluto's not a planet anymore.

Hopeful, he begs in exchange for
his dignity,
repeated sympathy glancing off torn
leather loafers,
stuffed with last week's sports section,
like quarters from the bottom of an empty paper cup.