She would post herself in the way
in lines headed to transfer stops, to change,
or haunt intersections with four way full
scarecrow indecision, stop

on the corners of streets, and in the aisles
of buses, preaching only that
which has never left these crossings for road,
for choice    — the angry fear.       She seats

at the feasts   — Thanksgiving, any
holiday, any family place
setting   — the hunger of others’
satisfaction for herself, she seeks it

said this is what she deserves, if only
of herself. What she thinks she thinks
needs to be said whatever anyone
else thinks to be honest. So there

she sings from that part of the door
she’s never got through, the eye
which requires it all taken   off    down
all blown away    to get through to

that still naked-ness of clear again
even if she’s not        still, the voice comes through
that if we could listen as she is equally
raw    hear with meat and gut below the skin,

beyond the last violence,
to the silence just before
the bone      if we could still hear there
we’d hear


What hand can you offer one wanting
just to get even for what it doesn’t know what,

just to take out what it feels on someone else
to hurt because it can’t get at where it hurts      itself

to have to see to clear like a movie fakes
done seeing sharper than thought can cut to it;

what hand can you offer one that doesn’t know even
as a balance any other than more as my half and

who counts itself that much     more
and that more proofless     multiple unanswerably human hurts

because it can’t figure out a figure to answer how it wants
so count doesn’t count higher than want

and want also falls short enough to take someone down
for it

but there is no size for another to be cut down to but none
but death    this is so frustrating


You see me get the hell away from her
don’t you     quick as I can    and I bein nice
she act all girlfriend but that bitch dangerous

she pull so much rotten shit on peoples
she due to get her ass killed anytime
and I don’t tend to be nowhere near round

I ain’t getting cut down just for standin
next to her     I ain’t all that innocent
but I don’t be lookin for nothing I don’t deserve