from behindwith an anchor chain
(something about a woman)
and we all circled around
while
Merryman
did him in
under a hard-on sun,
finally strangling him to death
throwing him into the
ocean.
Merryman leaped to the dock
and walked
away, nobody tried to stop
him.
then we went back to work and
unloaded the rest of the bananas.
nothing was ever said about the murder
between any of us
and I never saw anything about it
in the papers.
although I saw some of the bananas
later in the
markets:
2 lbs. for a quarter
they seemed a
bargain.
(uncollected)
Sunday lunch at the Holy Mission
he got knifed in broad daylight, came up the street
holding his hands over his gut, dripping red
on the pavement.
nobody waiting in line left their place to help him.
he made it to the Mission doorway, collapsed in the
lobby where the desk clerk screamed, “hey, you
son-of-a-bitch, what are you doing?”
then he called an ambulance but the man was dead
when they got there.
the police came and circled the spots of blood
on the pavement
with white chalk
photographed everything
then asked the men waiting for their Sunday meal
if they had seen anything
if they knew anything.
they all said “no” to both.
while the police strutted in their uniforms
the others finally loaded the body into an ambulance.
afterwards the homeless men rolled cigarettes
as they waited for their meal
talking about the action
blowing farts and smoke
enjoying the sun
feeling quite like
celebrities.
the wind blows hard tonight
and it’s a cold wind
and I think about
the boys on the row.
I hope some of them have a bottle
of red.
it’s when you’re on the row
that you notice that
everything is owned and that there are locks on everything. this is the way a democracy works: you get what you can, try to keep that and add to it if possible.
this is the way a dictatorship
works too
only they either enslave or
destroy their
derelicts.
we just forget
ours.
in either case
it’s a hard
cold
wind.
I’m in bed.
it’s morning
and I hear:
where are your socks?
please get dressed!
why does it take you so long to
get dressed?
where’s the brush?
all right, I’ll give you a head
band!
what time is it?
where’s the clock?
where did you put the clock?
aren’t you dressed yet?
where’s the brush?
where’s your sandwich?
did you make a sandwich?
I’ll make your sandwich.
honey and peanut butter.
and an orange.
there.
where’s the brush?
I’ll use a comb.
all right, holler. you lost the brush!
where did you lose the brush?
all right.
