Forget Magazine. Remember, Remember, Remember.

You would like to help, but can't.

You have nothing to give.

You are very sorry.

You give a semi-
shrug to show
how helpless you are,
having nothing to give.

Your eyes have swept
ahead to their next
obstacle.

A hand takes your shin.
You pitch forward as if
you will fall to the pavement,
as if you will keep on falling
past the pavement and the cap
flattened by quarters and the sign
on wet cardboard that says
hungry and says
will work.

Maybe under all that slush
is just more slush.
Maybe you will fall through layers of slush
like the clown on film
who fell through seven floors.

Maybe you will swing from your fixed shin
fixed by the hand and its arm and its shoulder;
maybe you will swing and come back up
reversed, face-first, through the pavement behind you.

Ten feet ahead
a Santa rings a bell.
Maybe he has seen you.
Maybe his mouth has opened
not to say ho but to gasp.
Maybe his coin jar is empty
and the cause he flogs
is failing.

Ho, he says.

Ho.

Peter Norman is a man for all seasons.