I have to break a coin and a tattered bill
to squeeze some cheese from it and some bread
that is my art form now: there’s no fooling it
a twenty dollar bill dropped mysteriously yesterday
and today a ten: I am so distracted
trying to squeeze it out
ground down to the end of accounting
I can’t buy the Street Sheet from
the street artist who says he’s been living outside
for three weeks and it was hard
and he has a place tomorrow
in the Tenderloin: I’ve been going around
the block to avoid him
because I’m so broke
not even a word to spare
I wonder if all his paintings have been lost
I threw all mine away
down the years: they’re
fantasies now: out in the world
with its radiance and space
and he with the least resources
is the one who is still making it
San Francisco poet Sarah Menefee is a long-time homeless rights activist. She is the Homeless Desk on the People’s Tribune Editorial Board. She is a founding member of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, the Revolutionary Poets Brigade and 'First they came for the homeless'. Her latest collections of poetry are Human Star and CEMENT.
