-San Francisco

He shows me down the tracks. The arm the way it is.
What would God say about what is done to the body?
He says he’s fallen on hard times since he was rear-ended
at a stop sign, his chopper totaled, hog gone to the dump,
but he’s getting clean, getting straight. He shows me
the scar on his back, the old tattoo
over his heart, half scraped away. It’s the day
before Thanksgiving, and he needs forty bucks
to get to Sacramento, his family. But twenty will do,
he says, if that’s all I have—he could hitch part way,
bus-it part way. He backs up, looks sideways, down,
I hand over the forty.


At Prego’s, I have a nine-dollar martini with a twist—
think how nervous he seemed, how his teeth
looked bad, and his hands, and how we shook
on it, this deal, a short loan, how I was glad
to see him go, and the last look he gave me, quick
freeze. Now the smell of this gin, medicinal,
this cold alcohol. And the needle he’ll use,
the shame of it.