Honorarium

"I'm warm", shivers Randy
with arms jammed into his palm.
He sips, gulps, breathes in the vapor
the truth in his eyes tells all.

i am thinking of Adam,
both eyes conveying the cancer within -
even the glassy orb -
as his head, his torso, buckshot knees, and feet
dragged years across a hardwood floor.

Can i think of Lupe,
the most aware mofo I'd ever blow,
tongue cradling an LSD tab,
a shooting star in a picture, framed?

Must ends meet, ropes tied just so?
It warms me thinking how
they do and they don't.
If lives synched differently,
that tab takes Randy away
that youth helps Adam
evades bullets and tumors
but what of Lupe, who had
walked his own tight-rope
like a boy in his backyard?

That warmth ebbs as deep-gut fear
creeps in on the same soleless feet
that took him from the street.
If life leaves Lupe,
faced and emaciated before two score,
then what can it hold for me?