Down and out

​I was eating pizza on the steps when

A beggar asked me for money, I had
None but offered him the other half
With artichokes still hot, but he said
No it wouldn’t feel right, and walked on.

And the next bites were sweeter and
Clearer in the context of his pain, the
Mozzarella soothed my heart as a velvet
Curtain richly slices off the ache of frost.
Lucky me to eat and eat outside out of

Choice, not at home, a home to choose to not be in, not to have to find a nook every night to hook my sleeping soul on, not to
Have to sleep on stone a sleep closer to the night than is comfortable, a public

Closure of my body, a performance to the
City of my freezing lung, not enough heat to snore, just enough to breathe in before the next dreaded dram of coffin-cold air.

Ballad of Will Killingsworth

He used to hoard his poems in a plastic bag –

They were heavy but the burglars threw them on their

Backs with the rest of his life – fill the cracks in theirs

With more crack.

 

Later, he came home and found it

Gone and worse, his poems taken, and he knew that

Somewhere, soon, they would decompose in the stink

Of rotting  food.

 

Nothing was left, he had no insurance, he had

No chip that housed anything good he’d ever said

With dread the sink dripped and he thought how stupid

He had been to put his poems in a plastic bag that felt like money.

 

[To be continued]