this is PAIN

This is PAIN

She beat her feet into the cold tile of the aisle

Voices judge with middle class indifference over the soft comfort of muzac

She thinks, “milk or bread?”

Which will provide the comfort of love in her babies empty bellies?

Which will provide what was left of her dignity?

78 cent bread

The soft empty kind

That mashed to the top off her mouth as she sat cold and cried

Her babies crawled just to where her heart lay splayed on the floor,

“Mamma we want milk”

“Next week babies,

Next week,

We shall dine on meat and milk.”

And she thought,

“I will take the bus to the place that promised that I could

Dance

There are places that still will hire me worn

Tired

&Empty

There are men that still want me

For twenty dollars

& for twenty dollars I will buy you

Warmth

I will buy you

Little morsels to fill your hollow bellies

I will fill my emptiness as I hold you tight

Twenty dollars will buy you my embrace

For twenty dollars

I will sell my soul"(and all my parts)

She learned to close her eyes

While they appeared open

She learned to stop screaming in her head

As they grazed upon her fields

She learned to stop seeing them at all as they

Devoured her hopelessness in big sloppy bites

She learned to stop imagining them dead

As they they crawled on her skin

She learned to block out their greedy bloodshot eyes

As she tucked her babies safely into bed.

january 2010