I’d been green, a thrifter, no twisted sleeve,

trod leaden arches, crumbled, bridged pitted

malls in disbelief; clenched while morning burned 

outside my soiled underpass. I smelt 

the forlorn shore, so familiar for 

so long away, distend my trap rock floor;

empty beers roar marine, held to my ears. 

Something’s hard between the ground and me: I

tossed stones at the gulls circling their plights. Thrift 

had had none but its own late reward. Why?

I'd been a wet book, a cheap date; I'd left

a trail of breadcrumbs up to heaven’s gate,

of apple seedlings back east receding,

and of all the novels I’d quit reading.