There is a middleaged man, Tim Flanagan,

whom everyone calls “Fireball.”

Everynight he does the rocket-match trick.

“Ten, nine, eight…”  On zero

p f f t!  It flies through the air.

Walking to the subway with Flanagan…

He tells me that he lives out in Queens

on Avenue Street, the end of the line.

That he “makes his home” with his sister

who has recently lost her husband.

What is it to me?

Yet I can’t help imagining what it would be like

to be Flanagan.  Climbing the stairs

and letting himself in…

I can see him eating in the kitchen.

He stays up late watching television.

From time to time he comes to the window.

At this late hour the streets are deserted.

He looks up and down.  He looks right at me,

then steps back out of sight.

                             *

Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night

and I have a vision of Flanagan.

He is wearing an old pair of glasses

with a wire bent around the ear

and fastened to the frame with tape.

He is reading a novel by Morley Callahan.

Whenever I wake he is still there…

with his glasses.  I wish he would get them fixed.

I cannot sleep as long as there is wire

running from his eye to his ear.