Speaking of which, here's a poem from the streets. All this stuff really
happened, though not on the same day.
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Sketches from my commute
i
Wet-ashes scent of early fog
tinged with acrid odor of the joint
smoked by a couple huddled in the entrance
of the pleasant suburban train station,
one white, one black, both shabby.
ii
My seat-mate mentions his sister's suicide,
matter-of-factly.
iii
I am looking at a large bright knife
half hidden in the large dark fist
of a man standing three feet away
as I wait to alight from the train.
Does the object in question bear
any significant relation to my person?
iv
"Doctor! Doctor!" screams the blonde woman
wandering through the park-and-ride lot
in the wheezing screech of an asthmatic cat
trapped in a burning house. "Doctor!
I shot him! Doctor! Doesn't
anyone hear me?" she cries, stunned.
v
An accident on the tracks by my office.
I go to look: lights, cops, crowds,
and two canary-yellow body bags
a dozen feet from each other.
I ask some onlookers, "Were two people hit?"
"No," they answer.
vi
"Excuse me sir can you help me out?
I need to buy some corn bread and beans
to feed my kids. Thank you, thank you:
God is going to bless you,
and you are going to go
to heaven."
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