Who could you speak to when
bad luck, so unconcerned and equivocal,
clothed you in vacant industry as if,
in paradise, you were still not so much
as a snail? And did you laugh
to pay all your money for rent with spiders
and mildew where you could live alone
forever with your son?
I heard your voice at night, muffled in slather,
when you scolded the yellow street or begged
the dark houses for a breakthrough, yet
who else there had green plants, music
and a sunlit stoop every single morning
without real care? Give credit to the women
who ignored you while you scowled so
peacefully and ate up being poor again,
as you can see it didn’t last and, as in
all holy places, you were known.