obscenity

getting off the d-train one morning
@ the 125th st. nicholas stop
&
walking toward the soup kitchen
where i was going to work that
day
i saw a young girl of maybe 6, 7 or 8
(i’m not good with age)
sleeping underneath a black garbage
bag---
she was sleeping outside the soup
kitchen,
no doubt, waiting for it to open---
& when i had crossed the street
completely
she rustled and got up from where she had been
laying
and moved out from in front of the
establishment
whose large gates were still drawn down &
locked.

what can there be said about this image
that would make it any more clear in your
mind?

when she was walking quickly away
i wondered where she was going &
what would become of her---like
any person with an ounce of
compassion in them
would---
still, i felt as ineffectual as a doorstop that
won’t keep a door open.

because when you don’t have money yourself
to pay your own rent & you are living in
an american city
where you walk past people who have been
forgotten
or
ignored
or worse yet,
they are being pushed away, out from in front of
stores on 5th avenue & the like
you are crushed by the weight of
hopelessness---
when you understand that there isn’t
enough that one person can
possibly do---
& no matter how much your heart could
bleed
you are still just one person---
and in a manner of speaking,
you become just another component in a
failed system
in a
failed city
that perpetuates its cruel reality in a
failed country
that has left nothing to the imagination
when it comes to
neglect.

this vulgar truth
more profane than anything your ugly mouth
could ever muster
smacks you in the face as if someone
blindsided you with a baseball bat & like a
domino falling---about to hit the next &
then follow, colliding, one
after the
other---
you might find yourself sick to death of the
obscenity of it
all---
wanting to burn it all down
& to start over.