Alice sleeps in the streets under the judgment of fluorescent temples. And a retail generation
folds jeans listening to Coldplay
She’s from Kansas or someplace where hair bands play at state fairs
Folks sit in pews that smell like John v 1:12 and go to Sunday breakfast with
bacon in puddles.
Someone could have tucked her in back home, under clean sheets and scented dolls, or maybe Uncle John was funny but too friendly. Her soul had to leave her body and mind;
so they all could live.
Alice talks to Alice constantly. Everyone else stopped listening as her teeth rotted, her mind feral and streetwise.
Some scars won’t close with prayer or hope no amount of iodine or soap,
stitched by pocket change.
She asked me to take her picture. “Get a good one,” she says
She didn’t like the first one. “I’m the Secret President;
my picture will keep you out of trouble.”
At 7 11, I buy her Hot Cocoa and some Ho Ho’s, me too. We laugh in the way that only two crazies seeing each other’s crazy in a grin can. Hopefully, you’ll understand.
Alice used to swing in the schoolyard, boys hoping her skirt floats on the upswing.
She was the best giggling runner on her block, faster than her brother by a couple of sidewalk squares.
Now, Alice sleeps on your street tucked in by I don’t give a fuck
And I look at her picture to keep me out of trouble.
A poet, writer father of a poet. writer, son of an incidental poet who gave me much to write about... and life.