AMAZING GRACE

by Gay Reiser Cannon
(Port Aransas, TX)

She knows dumpster food
And dying from two stories up.
Everyday she sees death
In the faces of people and in the trees.

She's haunted by love and death
and by slow disease,
Every lost case, kitten and child.
Makes her fear she’s dying--
Sleepily with drugs,
Like Granny wasting away,
Or quick
Blood running down her neck.

She'd like to use drugs
To remember or forget.
She'd like to use
Sex like a drug to keep
Fear at a distance
But there's disease in blood heat.
It's safer to ache.
It's a war and there's
Only so much pain she will
Bear on the street.

So she sleeps
And again her brother falls
To his death
Wrapped and waiting for the morgue
In white sheets.
She cries
And pleads
How much goodness is required,
How much magic
Can she manage to
Survive this ordeal--
Another day?


© Gay Reiser Cannon - All Rights Reserved