Wearing headphones on a stationary bike
at the mirrored gym, I might
be an art installation: "Bald Man

in Battle with Time." In life,
I'm a shattered window, a house
emptied even of ghosts,

incapable of frightening the meek.
Unbidden, people tell me things.
I'm losing my job, says

a colleague as we pass on the stairs.
My children want my house,
says a faded neighbor. I'm so

lonely. Once, at a riverside concert,
an old pal I didn't recognize
told me he was dying and I

lost my ability to speak, but held
his arm for a beat as the sky
shifted and the water reddened.