Further On

Scrub me past guilt, past daddy-boy music, that nonsense noise
which is dedicated to street after street, East Roseville Parkway to I-80
high! Hi, the freeway signs say, hellow-hello-hello-
Don’t forget that I am here — graffiti and murals overlap, living
beating thing — if we live in art, and are art, then maybe the cash grasses
will cease to flow. And we will no longer need to pitch a tent under
raccoon-centered overpasses, or save our urine in ziploc bags purloined

from park trash cans. I’m more upstanding than you, (know),
thoughtful enough to not piss on the bare sidewalks, where we all stand;
even though I am killing the roses, or oak planted trees, I made a choice,
and I picked You, anonymous passerby, relegated citizen; a hard choice, in the
middle of San Francisco night. The place I was pushed towards. From Oakland
to Sacramento, from Roseville to unhallowed lands. San Pablo. San Jose. I’m
not welcome anywhere, but still I try to make things neat for you. I
create. I have two jobs. I decorate the cement with watercolor-chalk hybrids. I
shovel shit off the asphalt, sometimes with my two bare hands. I have no
shoes. I have no socks, no hands, no hybridizations of tea-rose varieties, iris
hibiscus in mug cup. People spit on me, poison me with grocery sandwiches.
I don’t even sleep anymore.