The Man by the Roadside

The man by the roadside might be an angel.

He seems to be looking this way.

Sometimes he's smiling, sometimes he's sombre. 

I can't quite piece him together.

His look is familiar as a scent remembered,

yet something keeps falling away. 

It's me, I whisper, It's me.

He seems to be looking through me.

The words settle in the dust at my feet.

Dust here is everywhere.

The cornfields run on forever.

His field is waiting.  He is waiting.

He steps through a row of dry leaves.

The leaves give voice to the wind.

The wind erases his passage

to a faint trace of grey.