The Breadman

The sun was warm and the lunch-timed chatter filled the park.
The passers-by starred under their not-so-dark glasses as the couples bedded on the grass.
Two men lay in solitude. Resting away the hour.
One old. One young.
How old I could not say.

Another man, age settled on his brow, drunk and homeless – or neither.
Just taking his time.
He throws the bread near the older of the two resting men.
The one in the suit. The matching suit.
The birds flock between the three men.
The suit sits up. He looks at me. I shrug a hopeless smile. We both know he’s annoyed.
His eyes pierce at the bread-man. He doesn’t seem to see the problem.
Stiff words fall on absent ears.
He is absent. And so sees no problem.
The suit collects his lunch package. Disturbed. He leaves.
He would have left anyway as time bares heavy on his wrist.

Another man approaches the bread-man, the drunk-man, the homeless-man.
The old man. The breadman.
He wears a brown suit. Unmatched, of course. But he’s better dressed than the breadman.
They embrace and walk towards the giant chess game that has played this whole time in the close-distance.
The birds clean through the bread. The lazy scavengers clear the ground.
The sun is warm and the bread is nuzzled like ducks sifting seeds.

Only the young man lies alone now. With my shaded glasses I sit. And eat alone.
My lover of years past walks by.
I stand. Greet with a kiss.
We look like the rest of them. We chat a while and I watch him eat.
The time passes with familiar ease. My lunch hour rolls over but I still sit.
But soon we stand, shake the scarf.
Then run frantically back to work. Excuses trailing behind.
Like all the rest.
Except the breadman.
The drunk.
The homeless.
Or neither.


(Written during my lunch break in Hyde Park)