Being Poor

BEING POOR

By JCSTREET © 2004

I pick
the tobacco outa the Drum pouch and
roll
like I used to in the navy, picking

the tight moist vegetable
apart
into lissome fragments which will breathe, this

is what I have fallen to
from my fine life, from
the endless trips to Cannes, the
endless trysts with
silk-stockinged girls, each

with their own desires, their
own pure desires, their
own

ways of being in Nature, their
own ways of being, and

roll it up and encase

hoping that a jailyard lag would not
think me lacking

hoping

that a cowboy would not
see me rolling errantly ahorse, hoping

that I can suck one more drag to ease
the yearning of my heart

-30- May 2004