Some Kind of Hero

The temperature clock
on the First National Bank
blinks faintly
through the aching cold.
The wind whips and pushes
and hammers everything.

Shivers of fear shoot
from every snorkel hood,
crystallizing
in the freeze-dried air.

Just now, outside my window,
a faceless man
with a frost-covered beard,
struggles down the street,
bobbing and jerking
like a tightrope walker.

At the corner, a vicious
gust of wind, loaded
with the bitter factor,
upends him,
slides him across
the breadth of the street
and up and over
the head-high barrier
of snow stretching
the length of the falsely
lit boulevard.
I gasp as he disappears.

A hero I think and fill
my cup from the steaming pot.