It was anybody’s son at the door

   in the dripping green slicker

      with the unsigned contract for selling my soul

 

to Holy-wood for a sack of gold

   the mere taxes on which would’ve once

      lit my greedy eyes with cartoon

 

dollar signs. The job was a trick I hoped

   to turn, having bankrupted myself on the dark,

      low-ceilinged box I lived in with plumbing from way

 

before Roosevelt. And as I looked for a pen

   I asked him in, and he asked to snapshot

       what he saw as my posh digs with battered camera

from a long lost pre-digital age. Cramming

  for his builder’s exam, he was, the terms

      cornice and chair rail were enchanted spells

he was proud to master. And this

   new messenger job—which kept him weaving

      between cabs and buses on this

thundered day, to stand in wet helmet

   in my foyer—beat like hell his last

      hauling bags of tacos up the graffitied

halls of public housing. Better wage,

   better tips, nicer rooms to imagine

      he might hammer together once

he got certified. He rode off in a zigzag,

   dodging a bus that belched smoke.

      You won’t believe his name was Jesus,

and I’d been weeks entreating the iron gray

   sky to see specifically Him. O Lord, last seen

       on battered mountain bike, green wings extended

behind in wind, come back, make me rich again.