The man who sits in Caribou coffee,
sipping warm milk at a table near the back--
he is always there.
What is his story?
Well, Stella, Maddie, Cory and I got drunk one time and asked him.
Why not?
A couple of high school kids who know nothing about life.
He told us he was homeless,
in a very roundabout way.
He told us he had made some wrong decisions in his life,
very vague.
He pulled out a box of crayola colored pencils.
He drew a portrait of us.
Told Cory to eat a spoonful of honey
for his smoker's cough.
He smiled,
he reveled in talking to us about life,
God, horoscopes, different schools of thought--
so knowledgeable for a man of his circumstance.
I haven't seen him in years,
and I can only hope that it's
because he saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
I can only hope the world didn't swallow him hole,
leaving just a tethered old box of colored pencils,
and a mountain of caribou coffee cups.
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