Boston & I

"NO
AND I MEAN!
NO PARKINg"

So you put hard quarters in a meter,
its top shaped like a nut,
and I am bolted awake
in a city where we have no electricity
and I am no Edison.

Bar

The Tam, where they serve gin and
gin and gin and tonic and opinion and
the TV cackles in poverty's ratio.
$2.65 an hour, she says, between rants
about shit due process.

Tai Chi

Duncan says to keep your cards close,
yeah, Duncan's here to see his kid but
I saw Duncan at the coffee shop;
he boasted about "gettin' with his
baby momma" last night, and I saw Duncan
later at the park, gettin' stood up,
but Duncan knows what Duncan's doing,
he teaches Tai Chi, straight Southern
in a vest and ponytail,
drawling about "Nawth Carolina"
and I made the mistake of saying
I'd solve my problems in a Taoist way
and he made the mistake
of comforting me
in a city where he hadn't kept his cards close.