Archive for December, 2007
There is a bone in my heart
for all the sour-faced losers,
all the dumb degenerates,
the sickos, the assholes,
fanatics, the cops, the priests,
the politicians,
all the repeated shocks,
all the bombs,
the crashes, debacles,
from the messages against my senses,
the falsetto blows,
the kidney punches, all
the wind knocked out of me,
all the losses to peril,
those left lonely,
those left dreaming,
my bone is quivering in my chest,
humming their songs to me.
At some point, everything changed.
(I was hungry.)
My father held a knife
and his brother took a broom.
(I was hungry and crying.)
My father stood ready, a line
dividing us from the rest.
(I had lost my shoe.)
He had decided
something had changed
among the other people.
(Everything stank.)
They could not be trusted
at all anymore.
(We were better off alone.)
(I was crying just to do something.)
We were waiting in line:
to the bathroom, for some food,
to shuffle past tables,
to yell and grab and take.
My mom gripped
an old yellow banana purse.
Our food was there.
Our blankets hung through the strap.
She would not stop carrying it.
She fought off strangers to hold it.
(I wanted her to carry me.)
(I had a kazoo once, a new GI Joe.)
(I wanted to sleep on the banana.)
(Dad was gone a long time.)
(He didn’t come back.)
Some men fought my uncle.
He fell down real good
and lay there a long time.
They took the purse from my mom.
(I just kept crying.)
(I fell asleep. I woke up.)
The rain slowed.
(I didn’t know where my dad was.)
(I didn’t know where my kazoo was.)
There was nothing to do.
(I just kept crying
until I was tired again
and slept in my mother’s arms.)