*On the corner of Bedford and North 11th*

Your belly is a bowl full of bellies, so
spare me the self-righteous rapid-fire
of rhetoric. Grab a mirror and watch
it pour out your widening hole.
(Where would it go if I shoved
the balderdash back with a ten-foot pole?
To the bowl full of bellies, of course.
Maybe I should borrow it sometime.)
Your sunburned face excretes faucets
of death and despair. And the few
strands of uncut hair fall limp
over conjunctivitis red with pride --
and god how did you welcome
that bowl full of bellies, which hangs dumb
under the sweat and severed nails,
like jagged half moons, on that dirty t-shirt?
The clothes you sell are draped
on a stubby fence; the useless skins
of your dreams on a crowing cock,
too early in the morning or too late
at night, limping sadly out of sight.
Tell me again, poet, how
to treat my neighbor. Tell me the way
you told her. I am dying to hear.
Turn the corner with me.
Follow me down these stairs.