This old black coat was never mine,
nor the hat, its brim
shading one more poem's lines,
the poem that's stuffed with dry ideas
not even a cow wants to eat

and standing tall on five feet of stake,
aluminum pie tins flapping in the wind.
This is work: to guard someone else's
garden, growing nothing of your own.

This is life: illusion
to fool dark things,
be a silhouette, listen
to distant caws consider
whether you are real
by your shape alone.