Manhattan 15th Street 1986

Donna Dallas

Having no idea of the sorrows I would stumble into

from bad choices in men

friends

money

men

wish I could have envisioned the trajectory over the next twenty years

of end after end

divorce after divorce

move again to move again

hop from man to man to mount

my hunger so deadly

for fear if I shed a tear 

this bleating body

would fumble

Later peeled myself from my straying skin

to become an extension of another gleaming

prospect - and let’s not get bogged down in this history

but he wanted me so badly

I found his menace 

the band-aid my bleeding wounds desired 

I could have dodged many - most every bullet 

a lot of them I took head on

afterwards reeled in an agony of shame and longing

which flowered into desperation

alas my body so dirt trodden

exhausted and completely ignorant 

that stars do blaze out……eventually

Yet I strung myself along

gripped to some unknown source

as if every knock down dinged me points

for being a good loser

and here I am

sore-ass knuckles and every bone a burning hitch

I think back along 5th Avenue 

long legs treaded that ground so light and airy

I will ride out on some decrepit dog of a man

lasso’d to his belt strap

craving the very fire

my own two feet - now burnt to ash

distinguished back then 

in wild haste