Portrait of a Poet with a Console TV in Hand

I bought that TV at John's TV
on College Avenue in San Diego
and lugged it all the way home
on the Greyhound bus.

Sitting in Phoenix bus depot
waiting room, TV sitting on my lap,
I felt foolish as I watched
depot officials grab an old man
derelict as he searched dazedly
into an open locker compartment.
They pushed him reeling out
into deadly stunning American city.
At 12:30 A.M., there wasn't anything else on,
just that already too late, late channel.

I had known that I would be coming home
but the TV-in-hand bit
was an entirely new angle, and I think
that it must have to do with an odd madness.

Simon Joseph Ortiz