After your fall,
you’re free to examine
the customs of slumming
in the name of a new life.

You’re free to move about
the dark places of the country,
the shady shelters, the half-secure
shared apartments, the dank
holes of forgotten neighborhoods.
Enjoy it and make a brag of it,
buddy; someone will agree with you
out of necessity and praise it as
a lifestyle choice, a simplification.  

You’re free to self-medicate,
embalm yourself early, break open
the husks of imaginary taboos
in a world where everything’s permitted
and less is not more.  Laugh and barf
on the corner, bucko; no one need hold
your hair when you’ve shaved your head
that shiny. 

Maybe, though, you’re happy.
Maybe you’re glad things
aren’t better, more comfortable,
closer to what you once had —

but friend, you claim too much
for the way you live and too loudly
and for all the proclamations,
those keno slips in your pocket
flag a willingness to leave it behind. 

Really, you’re free as this worm
in this puddle and as
pale.  He’s wriggling
because that’s what worms
do.  It’s what you’re
gonna do too.  Snicker
and wriggle, pal; all yours
your low pride in low places,
even your wet pride of a pending
wet death in public, with not even
the utility of the fishhook
offered to you
to help you salvage a scrap.