(Dedicated to Childhood Role Models now Incarcerated)

we see it written all over his face—sawdust, whimpers, wet tracks of tears. his bent elbows are handles; he is lifted at will.

here was one who was more than a god to us. we chased marbles down escalators at the merest scatter of his hands. the artery which ran from his tear duct to the cornea—it kinked like a polygraph needle. how close we had come to grasping that line, feeling its pulse.

now he is trapped, but everywhere, and a voice says on the radio that he is faster than ever, spanning from end to end in seconds.

the camera focuses. millions cannot tell before from after, but the line has gone flat.