At a Red Light

There are those who only have their name to give as thanks. 
Have you seen a two year old boy hand his papa an orange peel?

That is what I remember, and Barry’s eyes, too, oddly sweet, gleaming with oil, 
glazed and losing. Admitting with his palm, thirty of the filthiest cents I have ever seen,      
A sort of proof, I suppose. 

“Where are you from?” means “where are you as a person?”

At an intersection, on the corner, by a guardrail plastered with band stickers,
by a highway to nowhere, 

I am always home but do not belong.

George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat ReviewMoria Poetry JournalChronogram JournalAmpersand Literary ReviewThe Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in USA TodayThe Wall Street JournalThe AtlanticHavana TimesSouth China Morning PostThe Buffalo News, and more. 

See all his poems on Tea House here.

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