I failed him almost fifty years ago
Not realizing the guilt I would carry
Revisiting the ineffective choices I made
Not knowing what else to do
Not someone I knew well
But I recognized him as homeless
Wandering aimlessly on Fifteenth Street
Seen as I was making deliveries
He had fled from the psych ward upstate
Forced megadose injections of thorazine
Leaving him traumatized and fearful
Afraid they would make him take more of it
Stepping up into the cab of my truck
Where I was not allowed to let him be
Riding along to the next stop pleading with me
To let him crash under my roof
He stayed with us some days or weeks
Too upset to handle his arousal taking a bath
Worrying us with a six-year-old daughter
Until I told him he had to go
I remember finding him in the hallway
Sleeping outside my apartment door
Telling him he could go and get a bed
In the men's shelter around the corner
I gave him a slip of paper with an address
Of a friend who also knew him that he could ask
For help perhaps to stay with him a while
The friend who told me the police came knocking
The cops found the address on the dead body
Taken as evidence to investigate further
How I found out later what happened
What they told my friend at his door
I still see his eyes above that classic roman nose
Looking back at me hurting as I send him away
Enea Atti who ended his painful life
February 7, 1974 at 27 years old
He jumped from the roof of the men's shelter
A place where I went regularly for years after
Making deliveries mingling through the crowd
Hurrying past their deep despair and desperation
Please forgive my apparent indifferent hardened gaze
Looking away from this scene of human misery
Holding back my empathetic response
Trying to hide my distress being unable to help
