Leg strings on crooked feet
stretched one big brown shoe forward,
then the other; arms jerked like panic
as he marched into the Schuylkill.
Smoke rose from him in ribbons.
His raised hand trembled,
stars and stripes forever and ever and ever.
Glockenspiel players twinkled like stars,
threw in their lot with trombonists
hooked to a moon crescent—
keys jangling on a warden’s ring.
