MADISON
SQUARE PARK, 5:29 A.M.
by Larissa Shmailo
Dawn: I wake in
the park, face puffy and red;
Liquid, brown
tallboys, broken glass, at my head.
The bench is
cool, my shoes are gone, my fishnet stockings torn;
I wish I were
elsewhere, lived differently, was safe, or never born.
Policemen tell
me, broke and blackly bruised, to move along;
I find
cardboard in the garbage, make a sign, sing a song.
A teenager
stops, sings with me, and blushing, averts his eyes;
Women pass,
scorn me, prouder than they’d be otherwise.
A businessman
winks, gives nothing; a serviceman gives a buck.
Men hang out
windows; one screams obscenities from his truck.
What some men
will hit on, eagerly, still astonishes me;
You are never
too sick, too dirty, or too old, apparently.
* * * * *
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