A Prying Eye

You are the spotlight

mounted atop a tugboat

chiseling through two feet

of January ice—

swiveling left and right

like the eager head

of a bird foraging

for exposed worms

and loose twigs—

panning from east

to west bank

of the Mississippi River,

and you just so happen

to stop your darting vision

on a shadowed figure—

a brooding man,

still a boy, really,

a boy with a man’s scruffy

three-day beard,

puffing on a three-dollar

cigar, its lit tip tilted

toward the ground—

the boy really a broken

flower drooping at the neck,

unmoved by your hard stare.