He is a pinball drifting down the streets.

Now up ahead a music snarls,

not wolflike, but bipedal,

a dragon with an elephantine nose

emitting jets of air as hot

as steam, its wind as savage

as a great whirlwind blowing in to ravage

the township with its din and dust.

It terrorizes Charles

and makes him head the other way. He goes

past black-eyed Susan, fleabane, nettle.

He goes where daydream takes him —

until another raucous gadget makes him

change course. He has no wanderlust.

He’ll leave his loft but not

embark on voyages beyond these shores,

as if they held him with a chain

of vines. None hold the shears,

nor will protect him. He has but two fears:

eternal rest and all the scores

of beasts which, in every lane

and avenue, assault him with their din.

He’s confident they will not win

as long as he retreats.