Brad Buchanan

The Sitter

The practiced stiffness of a drunk
asleep on a park bench makes me think
of skillful stars that compose their light
and leave it for years, to drift ahead
unconsciously, off the charts of fate,
out of tearshot.
                        If the engine of art
could follow such trajectories
to see the wake and the sunken boat
at once, I might blame him for travelling at
such reckless speeds--on a bender for days,
not moving an inch.
                        But his escape
is private and therefore absolute--
the shell of a man who keeps his shape
upright, as though mummified, he asserts
his deep aversion to being stopped
or hurried on his way through the portal's
clarity--somehow both sharpened and warped.