SELF PRESERVATION
Catch me, catch me, falling, falling.
I am alone on a wicked street, in darkness
and without an aim. Pointed shoes attached
to feet, leading me onward past doorways and
saddles and breweries and stables - all things
of the working man. They congregate like shelf
flies, talking, smoking, buzzing. Words and looks
exchanged in a commerce of intensified beings.
This is how things happen. Hunger stalks the lane.
-
It is well past the hour of witching, as I've heard
it said. The dark sky is riddled with moon, and the
cinders float up from the barrel fire nearby. These
people have meaning only between themselves, to
befit their presence on a land of chains and fence.
-
It is hard being a serf, a low-man, a seeker.
No one cares a whit were I to live or die - that
bundle of rags on the porch steps, that dead man
in a carton, 'tis I. Catch me, catch me, falling, falling.
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