THE MOST HANDSOME MAN I EVER SAW

The most handsome man I ever saw
spent his summers
glistening on the hood of a car
that hadn’t moved in at least a year.
Spectacularly shirtless, he smoked too much dope,
married at seventeen, was never around
when the social workers came to
evaluate his wife’s claim.
The most handsome man I ever saw
was a gardener; his beans and sunflowers
sprawled in the open field
behind the project, a verdant patch
in a scraped out lot that belonged to no one.
And all through the short steamy season
the women, the young girls, the chicas--
they came to him. Came to him in the dark,
came to him in the garden,
came to him in the stalled out car--
his office in the Department
of Dangerously Stunning Idlers.
They came to smell the sun that
lingered on his skin, came to understand
why they shivered in 90 degree heat
when he passed them on the street,
came to taste the lush red tomatoes
that grew sweeter that summer
than they ever would again.