Poem

Pittsburgh Notebook.

Bleak sunlight shambling through winter frosted panes
of the funeral man's office, framing the old stone church across
the narrow avenue.
Yellow mortar capillaries streak the facade of the holy place
and silhouette the bobbing head of a jogger,
red hoodie pulled tight against his face.
His hands in fingerless gloves punch the air in front of him as he
dances and steps in time, spinning to stare down an invisible
opponent as he moves slowly through the shadow cast by the
towering church cross.
His dreams are the scent of liniment and damp canvas and the feel
of a padded glove driven into another warrior's chin.
Warhol's brothers sat in this chair and cried years ago,
while two rooms over his body lay in a bed of velvet and polished
bronze, his unruly gray hair neatly combed.
It was magic those colors on stretched canvas and from this gray
northside village no less, his roots in scrap metal and junk to the
final flourish of the brush stroke vivid with red pop precision.
The low gray sky outside screamed to me, rest in peace.