Irving, the big guy from next door
is in basketball shorts
and nothing else
drinking a cold brew coffee
with milk
while sitting on the curb
in front of his building
humming softly. 

Either that or it’s
a pile of trash left from
the pickup yesterday
and a couple of upturned
recycling bins. Maybe
that’s a raccoon, maybe
there are two going through
what’s there and that’s where
the humming is coming from.

Keep the shades down.
Don’t try to determine
what’s true. Sometimes
it’s better not to know.
It’s a city, anything is
possible and usually
many things are true 
at one time here. It’s not
as simple as that God fellow
would like us to believe.

Maybe Irving has always been
just a couple of raccoons
in basketball shorts
humming an Edith Piaf song
in homage to the trash
spread before them
and maybe nature is benign
and malignant at once and 
the whole Good versus Evil thing
was forced upon us
as a restraint against marveling
at complexity?

No, it’s better sometimes to keep
the shades down than to raise them
(even just for a peek) and dispel 
all the joy and enlightenment  
of doubt.