Holyman

Alone,

a man sits on his front porch,
his face hard and tanned as leather
eyes small and dark like olives
his smile long as a year
and the color of sketching paper.

he sits in his rocking chair
ugly and charming
calling to passing neighbors
and smoking a rare Marlboro Light
while one hand stroked the ugly
yellow cat on the lap of his
dirty jeans.

a pretty girl stared down at him
from her dirty bedroom window
and wondered aloud to her mama
why he ain't with a woman

"Why, he ain't worth a damn"
her mama said,
rearing her values high above
her daughter's head

and the girl
she still looked down from her window
at the man,
watching intently as his rough, spicy hands
brought the cigarette to and from his tired mouth
a tattered shirt covering his big, scarred chest

and he always stayed out
on the porch
long enough to see her off to school
and lift his cowboy hat high in the air
as she passed by on the cracked pavement
he would call, "Hola, hermosa"
she would flush and smile
in her pretty dress

And she would always flush
in her pretty little dresses
every morning when she passed
until one day
his wooden rocking chair was empty
occupied only by an ugly yellow cat
mournfully wailing to the unseen moon.