Life In the 'Projects'
like sparrows on the streets and in caves
consider how they swoop and dive
and fatten on dusty pizza crumbs
consider the raccoons how they squawk and squalor
peck and fight for space to grow fat gray hairs
and live as a family in the wild consider them
consider the homeless man on East Euclid dragging
Giant-Eagle cart on the sidewalk every hour
with rags searching through litterbins for a meal
consider the hare the rabbit the crow and ants
with no pay stubs yet with no long days of boredom
and they lie in cleanest beds and smile at dinner times
then consider me after the gavel and the long sentence
living with cancelled checks crying over lost purpose
scarred of sirens and hunting shelters for meals
consider me sleeping in fields with dead numbers
consider me whose far-distant ancestors never crashed
in any trash but drank coffee with Carnegie on his birthday
consider me coming out of institutions that mark me forever
with a bindi that blocks my name from the list of humans
and to live I have to peep through thorn bushes and grunt
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