Poem: Not Quite Four-Leaf

[jakebe]

Hey there, all...

I can't figure out a name for the title, really. Any suggestions?

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Not Quite Four-Leaf

For an assignment sometime, somewhere,
we were instructed to follow a person of our choosing
and study what they were like
when they were relaxed and certain no one was watching.
I knew, as soon as I got it,
that we were looking for something incredibly lucky
especially since people didn't know to be private any more.
I followed them anyway, hoping to find my four-leaf clover.

The person I found was a balding man
who looked to have thirty years of stress lines
on a compacted face too short to fit much more worry.
He held himself to a personal box
that no one remembered the key for
and as I chased him silently to his home
the stripping away of possible intrusions did very little
to loosen the grip of himself into something more comfortable.

He sat on his couch like he hadn't befriended it yet,
with his legs shot forward and evenly apart;
hands on his knees, elbows on his hips --
he was an uncomfortable slipcover for a welcoming cushion.
The lines on his face never subsided,
they just migrated from place to place,
south for contemplation, north for worry or maybe fear.
Whatever the seasons, they were always harsh.

His landscape changed with the hours.
A vigilant hold reluctantly dripping to fatigue
until he fitfully drifted to sleep, naked,
in front of Dionne Warwick and the man with the bushy eyebrows.
I got an F for the assignment,
but most everyone else did exceedingly well.
I figured they either people lead them to secret, lucky plants
or they lied about whatever they discovered.