This won’t count

Posted on January 20, 2005 in Poems

Retrofitted.

Christ,
I saw you
at the corner of Carlotta and El Toro
advertising your yellow distress
on a sandwich board.
You were walking a red dog
and you’d grown breasts.
I want to apologize 
for not stopping to give you money.
I had a cold:
my throat felt like a scourge
and I was coughing
phlegm that scratched like nails.
It would have
laid you out on the grass
between the oleanders
and the lilies of the Nile.