My friend of moss and twigs
wades in the river with belly-deep eyes
his famous sweater is wet
frames around his glassy fingers
shining eyes to the tilted sun
and the obtuse moon
elbows calloused to crack
the curving windows
making his tobacco signature
from a dog's cushion
globes of piss in strings of rat fur
a mattress angled like a rocket ship
on the beads of a shingled roof
breaking the leaf and the sacred bubbles
spraying the doorways
with exterminating glint
nine ceilings underfoot
in one well-fed bedroom
grinning beard beneath a ballcap
ready to read and speak to the neon tables
wooden visitors from the sidewalk
and a shark's jaw shape of lips
in place of teeth
divulging rinds of smoke
the bones of dry rivers
catapulting water.