I listen to the man dressed in African garments
pluck his extravagant instrument
while I wait for the uptown D train.

Long black pants,
long black button-down shirt (buttoned up
except for the very top)
I am dark
I am draped
by unzipped illuminating Neon Green
puffy jacket.
The jacket is dirty,
coke-stained
it’s been my pillow under wooden benches
my shoes are old and weary
ripped through to my torn socks
they squeak in a rusty fury
when I walk.

In my hand I carry
a little pritty posh Linda Dressner bag,
in which rests an expensive dress
that I was paid to pick up for my mother.

I am a boy,
I am a man
whose fingernails happen to be freshly painted
Black
with deep blood red tips,
I wear
a shaggy voluminous blonde mop of hair on my head.
I disembark the D train
at 125
it’s 5:45,
now I’ll take the C back down to 86
because a history research paper due Monday
awaits me there.
At 8:00,
I will attend a play at Trinity School
Once In a Lifetime
at the Morse Theater.
Then I will listen to
“Today Has Been a Fucked-Up Day”
and hope I don’t step in stereopathic soulmanure
on my way home.