【by Sydney Smith】

They call him by his last name,
never his first,
though he always insists,
it just seems too intimate.
His skin is that of olives, his eyes are the color of authority, gray,
and he likes to pace,
a nervous habit he picked up from his father,
who picked it up from his father.
He sits on a honeysuckle throne,
his lungs expanding on a breath of carbon,
his veins stony and obsidian,
stained with blood from 52 years ago,
he lunges for eternal thew.
His hands are stained a berry sort of blue,
his legs are straight and forthcoming.
When the windows into memory start to blow open
he’ll look away,
he is pride and he is scarcity
and the wind is unforgiving
and salt.
And he is melancholy and absolute,
a nervous habit he picked up from his father,
who picked it up from his father.
It eats him alive.