Old Man River

This one took a bit longer than a half hour, but I want­ed to fin­ish it. Still needs workshopped/reviewed/edited.

The riv­er is an old man in a
smelly nurs­ing home. The smell is
like peanut but­ter in
the desert sun. The smell is not
quite his fault.
The old man is a few feet
short­er than usu­al and
long long ago lost any use
for dig­ni­ty. Instead, he sinks
into his bed, and expos­es
him­self to passer­by.

Four unmatched tires start
to dry in the sun. Mos­qui­tos
lay their eggs in the shad­ed
torus­es, humid and algal. One,
bald like the man, has a bit
of musty hemp rope tied to it.
Six­ty miles upstream the rest of
the rope hangs noose­ly over a pond.
The pond miss­es jupiter laugh­ter and
sat­urn splash­es. The sec­ond tire
has a wide white wall from the
old Chevro­let, the very car
where our old man sat close
to a real girl and touched
her warm back with rain­drop fin­gers.

Tire num­ber three, from the war,
from some vehi­cle shut­tling men
front­ward and corpses back­ward,
dri­ven by our hero, Old Man Riv­er.
The fourth tire has a sto­ry
of its own. It shines
like mos­qui­to wings and its tread
is heavy with the cil­ia of unworn rub­ber.
The riv­er and the old man,
bank­rupt and decrepit,
keep some secrets.