Carole Cloud

When I first saw them
I thought these two were lovers.
They walked so close, pushing against each other.
Then, she pulled open her coat. She was on the begging end.
He turned around to look at me. Like a skeleton, he smiled.
His teeth shone. Vicious. A rat in a gutter.
She didn't have much.
They managed a trade anyway.
It was obvious what she wanted from him.


.

Tonight my heart is wrapped in barbed wire.
Every time I breathe, my heart aches a little more,
so much blood pumping through, involuntary
contraction, myocardium stretching beyond capacity.

That’s living.

I sit in a shabby room with thirty addicted strangers
who have all lived far beyond their life expectancies,
too hard, too angry, too frightened, teeth missing,
bruises, scars, Black and Latino men, a coffee-skinned
woman with bloated midsection, eyes dazed, staring.

Too many months in prison, she says, years on the streets,
in and out of crack houses, turning tricks, kids pulling her hands to
lead her back home because she’s too high to know where she is.

I take a deep breath and feel those barbs tighten inside my chest.
My job, I say to them, to her, my job in this life is to be kind.
They stare at me hard and I am quiet. Just that, I say again. Just that.
I breathe one too many times, razors biting into muscle, and let go.