A seven-part poem reflecting facets of indigence, homelessness, and helplessness. "How many old men last winter / Hungry and frightened by namelessness prowled / The Mississippi shore . . . ? " This poem enters into the lives of the nameless persons who live in the same place, but not the same world as the "Walker Art Center crowd." The speaker cries out that he "could not bear / To allow my poor brother my body to die . . . . " Even here, in the midst of his desperation, the speaker finds a glimmer of possibility: "I want to be lifted up / By some great white bird . . . . "