Be careful in letting my heart open too wide,
Be careful in letting it all touch,
It can be overwhelming
It can be too much, for sure,
And dirty.
I take note: a man with this look of urgency
The stern grimace and determined eyes-
And too quickly he runs
I am tickled- after the surprise,
Because I have learned something about superman
Or about Clark Kent:
It is necessary to tear off glasses before racing faster
than a speeding bullet
or the hobbling speed of a half-well-aged older man.
Just as suddenly he is wrestling a strung out old woman of 30.
Half his age, but weathered twice as rough by meth and street.
To his defense he hasn’t touched her once, only tears his own coat from her thieving arms,
But it seems horribly violent, how she collapses,
Looking unconscious or dead, lying such that you think her skull has cracked again and again against the sidewalk.
Left there as if raped or insulted- which is maybe true,
But not likely by him, though he doesn’t care at all.
And with her lying there, No one coming to her side-
neither myself either-
Three made-beautifuls;
made by car and hair and clothes and waif and paint and company,
they step from vehicle to demand,
our hearts and eyes.
And we look on with gaping jaws and empty minds.
All of us on the streets not even silently shouting or pointing.