Jersey City Poems
A swirl of trash –
I’m dodging it.
A gust of nasty wind.
Now you’re about to be
even more remote.
Look at me, complete bitch
with nowhere to go.
Companion
in tan pants.
I am what to you?
My people wear sneakers
while they hunt and fish,
short perms, cuntish,
so I shouldn’t say
something is
wrong with you
because you grew up
in an asshole place.
Together we made
our way here
where the neighbor’s noise
drives you deeply inside,
where each A in my name
becomes a long pit, a grave,
where I’ve got something
in my tooth, some smudge
on my face, something off,
wrong, nothing light now.
Nothing lit up, bright, aflame.
Who called out to me
when my pace slowed
“Skank,” the voice said,
The razor wire
that’s around anything
nice shining in the dark.
The thing is I am a thing walking,
another nothing,
can to be crushed, bone to be chewed
He moistens his lips
in the street light
and waits or wait,
am I the man? I am.
Asking the price,
setting the time.
Every tank top is frayed
and too tight, summer
too deep to come out
of, every thought
overripe, so sweet
before it reeks. I will use
the two more
years I have of youth
spend thrift,
waste them, trash them.
Edited by Krista Starrett.
The featured image is "Jersey City, 2014" by Fabio Campo.
