Josie

but better days have come

            i wipe the sweat

            smell piss on my knuckles

            abortion residue

            drips down my leg

            dogs will piss on my grave

i’m coming into a moon

            full of pock marks

            jealous old lantern

            lights my night

            lights my route

            down rockaway blvd

            into blue-black alleys

            where i give 20 dollar blowjobs

and in the morning i see Rico at the newsstand

            he gives me free smokes

            tells me to get some money to my kids

            who live with my mother

            or my sister

            maybe even a foster fondler

            who will rip little wombs open

crack

            i need my smack

            i need this pipe

            my lover

            my healer

            i smoke to God

            smoke to the moon

            and forget every crab corroding my body

            every pimp

            that yanked fist fulls of hair from my head

            forget the Siph

            the Gonorrhea

            the HIV

 lead me not into temptation

            i have done only evil

            it fires my peacepipe

            i inhale over and over

            over and over

            i wake up on the street corner

            in the back seat of a car

            in my lice infested bed

            want more

            can’t not want

--Donna Dallas