I live above the safe injection site.
\nA naked man threw a rebar spear down my street
\nThe other night. Another shot up, then died
\nOn the stairs of the empty building that\u2019s always on fire.
\nI scored 1560 on my SAT. Who cares?<\/p>\n
A woman dragged a mattress down my street,
\nSodden with rain. She gave up in the dark,
\nProstrate on the road, with a garbage bag,
\nShy of my elm tree. I called 911. No one came.
\nMy country always hated me. So what?<\/p>\n
They sell my books at the Harvard Bookstore.
\nThe woman lives with a man behind my car.
\nThey camp a fortnight, then they leave
\nBehind a field of glass pipes and needles,
\nAnd a rain-warped textbook\u2014\u201cStatistics: An Introduction,\u201d<\/p>\n
Then they howl back. I call politicians. They don\u2019t care.
\nMy teachers die. My mentors break my heart.
\nOh\u2014and a couple has been living in folding chairs
\nAt the foot of my street for five years,
\nOutside, come any weather, and won\u2019t part. Huh<\/p>\n
My Yankee girlfriend left me. My place sucks.
\nIt could use a woman\u2019s touch. Me too.
\nI tried. I blamed the world. My tax bill grew.
\nI asked too much, then journalism died.
\nI euthanized my cat, my dying pride.<\/p>\n
Everyone warned me: dreams are dumb, and lead
\nTo having to need to drag down a street
\nA stupid bag, a mattress, and some sheets,
\nAnd pray that there is someone up above
\nWho wants for me not just less harm, but love,<\/p>\n
But love\u2019s for idiots. The future\u2019s fentanyl,
\nSmall-boat air strikes where they kill you all,
\nRelegating noble streets to hell,
\nAnd making good but lonesome men behold
\nA woman in a road, to see the girl<\/p>\n
That she once was, the squirming and the sound
\nAnd promise she had been to somebody
\nA score of years ago. Each side has found
\nIn her an impeachment of the other,
\nWhile she cowers by my car. Is this progress,<\/p>\n
Like a spear of rebar moving through air?
\nSell me on it, I\u2019m asking, I guess.<\/p>\n