Your town along the Clark Fork River

overflows with homeless tents,

cluttering the bucolic landscape

at a similar ratio to Los Angeles

 

or San Francisco: cardboard scraps,

ripped tarpaulins, discarded REI tents

resuscitated from dumpsters

and repurposed into homes.

 

I remember your extended

vagabond stint in 1980s Madison—

sleeping on heated parking ramps

in the depths of a Wisconsin winter,

 

disguising your tattered backpack

as a tree stump, then stashing it

in the woods behind the Memorial Union,

 

while students drank two-dollar pitchers of Point

and complained about their classes.

Now, you and your embittered wife

live in a spacious house downtown.

 

You probably complain about the mess

as you drive your minivans to Safeway,

but I wouldn’t know about it,

since you no longer speak to me.

 

I was good enough when you had nothing,

but comfort renders me useless.

 

I hope I creep into your dreams

with offers of food, sex, and clothing,

 

and you’re forced to remember

your days of poverty, but

I am sure your sleep is empty,

and you have forgotten everything.