Wednesday, July 22, 2009

New Horizons


larry has a stab wound

healing on his stomach

he lifts up his shirt

to show me the gauze

stained red-brown

he tells me it looks worse

than it feels


jerryl has a friend

who was gunned down

last saturday night

on his front porch

dead on arrival

he has been carrying

a gun in his bookbag

since sunday


toya has a cigarette

hanging out of her

mouth every morning

before the door is unlocked

she is fifteen

and her belly grows

bigger every day

while the rest of her

wastes away


trey has a mother

who smokes crack

until she passes out

on the kitchen floor

he can't read

all he ever thinks about

is picking his mother

off of the kitchen floor

and taking the blackened pipe

from her knotted hand.


i am diagramming sentences

on the black board

ted smokes rock

subject verb object

bob bought a gun

subject verb object

sally sells drugs

subject verb object


i don't want to die

verb

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