face creased like worn leather from weather and want
-- The speaker (Line 2)

Importance: This ambitious and effective line uses simile, internal rhyme, and alliteration. The simile is in the description of a face “like” leather, which is used to create an internal rhyme with “weather” and the alliterative “weather and want”. The image suggests that the central character has been worn down on the outside and the inside, eroded by deprivation.

No fire here, between towns where smoke means / unwanted attention, means clubs and dogs and running.
-- The speaker (Lines 11-12)

Importance: This line is the first hint of the man being unwanted by society, a theme which is further explored in later stanzas. The poem never directly mentions police or security guards, although they’re implied on more than one occasion. The speaker uses the word “running” as part of a larger idea; that the man is always running from something, whether it’s the threat of capture...