Just Talk

Just Talk

He said:

you make it in here same as you make it

out there only the clothes are different have been

pissed and shit in by someone else you never would

have called your brother or cousin or uncle or any

blood running up and through from the toe

to the brain.

I said:

no it don’t start there, not at the

toe, it gets there from the start in the dark

behind bars under all my skin and I’m not just talking

ribs and scapulas I’m talking like there’s rivers

in there and if my head pounds the way

my heart does when the only way through a flood

is over a collapsing bridge you go, shit you go

and he said:

yeah, toe first, and if if if it holds you ease down maybe,

maybe to the heel and if tried and firm it’s the foot

you’ve left behind you’ve got to mind

and when you lift it, when all the weight’s

on that one foot you put down

when it holds you and you hold your breath

it’s that moment: one ground and one air

and I said

yeah and the tension wires stretching in the twisted

wind you really right there you really have to say I’m going

it’s rising, this water’s rising and what’s behind me

is this dry prison cell and it may be all I need

to live through this flood but Jesus I’ll tell you

the river, man, it is in my skin, it is choked

to the mouth

and we both said:

with my old house, and when

I watch my dirty kitchen dishes float by,

when I watch beds float by, rumpled with fuck

knows what I’m risking.  I’m stepping full down

on the bridge even if those wires scream and the sleet

boils and it’s a wet and lamenting dark on the other side.

I’m stepping.