My body lies down
in muck and mire,
taunts me with its needs—
food, water, a place
to rest.
My body walks,
talks to people
asks for fifty cents
or a dollar, for a bus ride
to some place where it
can eat and drink.
I no longer know where this body
came from, ghosts
and signs from God telling me
I must keep moving
or the loud ugly crowd
will close in.
Sometimes other bodies blur
on the sidewalk,
they are me, too, or
they would not be here,
would they—?
Where my body lies down
is not a created space.
Sleep comes quick and hard.
I wonder why I still wake up,
every morning pushing hunger
upon me.
I don’t think about
an ending. Every moment
is the end. Every minute
dies in a luckless line
of unfed breaths.
Yet in faded dreams
I can almost see
green lands where yams
and plantains and children grow strong,
even though I’ve never been there.
Yes, my body breathes
wherever it wanders,
sits or lies, but because
in this city I can barely
see the sky, I no longer know
why.
Patrice Wilson is poetry editor at Decolonial Passage. She was born in Newark, NJ and has a PhD in English with concentrations in postcolonial theory and literature. She wrote a poetry thesis, “Between the Silence,” for her MA. She has three chapbooks with Finishing Line Press, and one full-length book, Hues of Darkness, Hues of Light, with eLectio Publishing. Her poetry has been published in several journals. Having been a professor and editor of the literary magazine at Hawaii Pacific University, Honolulu, HI, where she lived for many years, she is now retired and resides in Mililani, HI.
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