Second Coming

I always see him with a dog,

a mid-sized dog

of indeterminate breed,

not a border collie,

but something like that,

short-haired, though.

I see him doing stand-up

at a third-rate comedy club

in a Hoboken strip mall

the room is never more than one-third full;

he’s textbook

at handling hecklers.

I see him waiting out his time on death row,

gaining weight, going gray;

he never files an appeal,

never claims he didn’t do it

doesn’t pen a memoir;

his crime is unspeakable;

when the day comes

he’ll refuse a last meal,

speak no last words.

When I picture him back from the dead

he’s an old man on a bicycle

riding a tottering line

a loaf of bread under his arm;

he’s a Chinese guy collecting plastic empties

on a winter street;

the homeless wreck

propping himself against a fire hydrant

to vomit in the gutter

He’s that old woman picking her way

over the busted-up sidewalk

on Nostrand Avenue

the wind fluffing her cinnamon-colored hair

revealing a bald spot.

—Emily Szabo Birch