Invisible

I’m the guy in the B-flick noir who exits
the black cab—an old London taxi—wrapped
in gauze strips—the hack, prepaid with fare
and tip, grinds gears, shrieks tires, and zips off—
Oi! I’m not contagious, not Mr. Invisible—
I know you can’t see them, but read my lips—
how risible—it’s just bandages and casts,
a crutch and a sling, patches—tucked beneath
a three-piece suit, fedora, and sunglasses—
only some snippets unkempt and bedraggled—
Or was it a Red Cross van, and the orderlies
flung me out at a sharp turn off the gurney,
before the trustees could name a unit for me?

Caught in the crossfire of delusions and insults,
hobbling, limping, lurching, I proceed,
until a street urchin accompanies on harmonica,
and soon others join in, on bongos, vibrant tins,
and accordion—who taught them how, or is it
spontaneous? Like Manet’s Old Musician,
I look back at the spectator, but no Strad
in my lap, no heirloom tool to plaint and stoke
a comeback—life hamhandedly imitates art.

I’ll work as the maître d’ for street mongers
of pancakes and sausages. I fall asleep,
and a grafittist sprits a mustache on my wrap,
and delineates a bald head with pointed
sideburns—how did he know what’s beneath?
He pinched my passport or my picture I.D.—
I don’t need either—every step is a trespass,
hard to forgive. I hoist a tattered pennant
of homespun swaths—is it surrender, a claim,
or a brash sortie against other pains, other incursions?

Javy Awan has worked as an editor for national professional association publications. His poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Midwest Quarterly, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and The Ekphrastic Review. He lives in Salem, Massachusetts.