For the City that Nearly Broke Me
I tell my woman
I’m in trouble.
Two dice banking against the curb
and my foot leaning into another decade,
where men were tied to chow calls
& count times, & if the man tossing
the dice rolls one more seven
I’m reaching for my buck knife.
This is where I am when she says
she doesn’t love me – I’m stuck in
a craps game that’ll end in my blood
turning money into a bad omen.
All this I got from your streets,
those avenues circling me with
a dead man’s redemption. You want
me to believe if I pray long enough
things will change, that the homeless
will grow hundred dollar bills instead
of knotty hair. But I dig knotty hair,
I dig the way it feels when a fine woman
tells you no for the last time. She once
said yes, & if rumbling with gulag
people call the nation’s capital is just
holding on to the memory of yes,
I’ll hold on. I believe I will.
--REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS
Two dice banking against the curb
and my foot leaning into another decade,
where men were tied to chow calls
& count times, & if the man tossing
the dice rolls one more seven
I’m reaching for my buck knife.
This is where I am when she says
she doesn’t love me – I’m stuck in
a craps game that’ll end in my blood
turning money into a bad omen.
All this I got from your streets,
those avenues circling me with
a dead man’s redemption. You want
me to believe if I pray long enough
things will change, that the homeless
will grow hundred dollar bills instead
of knotty hair. But I dig knotty hair,
I dig the way it feels when a fine woman
tells you no for the last time. She once
said yes, & if rumbling with gulag
people call the nation’s capital is just
holding on to the memory of yes,
I’ll hold on. I believe I will.
--REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS