Urban Decaydreams

Urban Decaydreams

How seldom have I wandered busy streets alone,

escaping to the maddened mobs of my species,

that there I might go anywhere, be anyone,

and lost or dreamt to forget in a flowing sea,

a patchwork of pea coats and shoes, handbags and ties,

this plain padded-cell, the monotony of me,

where dirty crack-whores guard the dirty, cracked sidewalk,

awaiting confrontation or competition

or indecent proposals. Eyes and thoughts stalk

me: I wonder at the difference ten blocks can make,

and if the souls of the street might bring confusion

or cause a sleeping sympathy in me to wake.

Could I have been that struggling artist in her prime,

barefoot, taking collection for her addiction,

if I’d learned to sing “sister can you spare a dime”

in a low and minor key, with a forlorn voice

like nails on a chalkboard, a blade along glass, in

brain and gut-wrenching pain? I guess I had a choice.

For I might have been in business and commanded

a world of stocks and bonds and trades with the graceful

march of a pair of legs up to there and landed

in the rich arms of a married man, if only

I had learned to lie or walk in high-heeled shoes while

holding a smile, though counterfeit, shamed, and heavy.

I must have had a choice because I see my face

in the reflection of a woman in disguise

window-shopping for jewelry that might un-trace

the unpaved path that brought her here until, at last,

she’s convinced her eyes to believe her shallow lies,

while her dark sunglasses conceal her humble past.

So in the presence of my race, I don’t pray, but

I dream; I dream that for a moment, one might have

mistaken me for a someone with a secret;

I tell myself that I have been them all (the un-

and overdone) until a stranger’s glancing laugh

reveals my only secret is that I have none.