Sultry, lazy summer air
envelops the two vagabonds.
They stumble through an amber world
as the sun, sore from a day of baking,
begins to nestle in its bed behind the mountains.
Cheap, lukewarm beers casually cling to their fingertips,
coarse and cracked like an old dried seabed
from their perpetual engagement
with taut, metal strings.

The bums amble in the twilight;
a language of references and terminology,
comprehended only by those who share their craft,
slips between their lips
and languidly blends with the smoke from an American Spirit.
Familiar streets soon become an obstacle course,
as the pair clambers through neighborhoods
soaking in the joy of objects and landmarks
that seem so banal at any other time of day.
With a concerted yet hopelessly uncoordinated hurl,
empty, crushed tin soldiers
land on emerald, freshly cut lawns.

Hiccupping and smirking,
the jesters head home.
They wear the musk of accomplishment:
rustic, vibrant garbs unearthed from the depths of their parent’s closets
lay loosely, sweat-stained on their backs,
breast-pockets bulging with twenty dollar bills.
Satiated, comfortable, inebriated
the vagrants travel like nomads—
content with life
and its humble simplicity.