Will Lunch Be Offered As An Optional Extra?

Tired of walking and checking the lines

of the tourist train that trundles through

this town, famous for its pottery

and brackish dune pools once visited

by St. George and his dragon, and the lady with her unicorn,

I stopped by at a convenient place to sit and shuck my sweet corn

and let the local men hang their gates from my eyes.

All they could offer were other versions of myself:

soft and sweaty, sick of the big car diet dished up by Detroit

and the cocktail-party and locker-room chatter

I've had to tackle while touring this country's musky beaches.

Choosing to drive to my next stop, I found

perched upon a tall chalk cliff

the statue of a broad-bodied chaser

so large I could never easily handle him as a top.

He'd been added on to so many times over the centuries,

that it was only really possible to identify him by touch:

a little more shy, perhaps, than other guys his age,

an abstract clock-face jutting from the pack

I could feel buckled around his waist,

and such wee-wee nuts,

he could only be named, I whispered, Patience.

I camped there in his shadow 'til noon the next day,

and drove away leaving a few of my burnt bones there, behind.

Source: Illustrated Games of Patience (The Song Cave)