Jimmy’d pop out the kickstand on his yellow bike
and stand in the intersection directing traffic,
his blue ball cap pulled low shading soda bottle eyeglasses.
Above his head the traffic light kept its separate rhythm.  

Folks who didn’t know him, at first and from a distance
thought he was a kid. In a way, he was –
a perpetual ten-year-old leaving the group home each morning
to cruise the streets on his bicycle,
no fancy gears, a kid’s bike.

The police department tolerated Jimmy
as he tucked his hand-made parking tickets
beneath windshield wipers of vehicles
threaded along Main and Washington.
“He ain’t hurtin’ nothin’.”  

I volunteered at the soup kitchen,
and the group home called regularly
reminding us not to feed diabetic Jimmy.
He took our rejection well
as long as he could sit down with his coffee.

Then he’d mooch off the trays of others.
“You want that chocolate cake?” he’d ask.
“Naw, Jimmy, you can have it.”
“How ‘bout them corn muffins?”
“Take ’em, Jimmy.”  

When Jimmy died
Shelbyville lost one of its flavors.
We missed the orange flag flapping above his bicycle
as he patrolled our streets.
Edgar, the Vietnam vet, and Booger Bill
with his wad of dollars stuffed
in the pockets of his flapping overcoat
momentarily kept us from becoming
any other small town in Kentucky.  

Now, they too are gone.