kill all the babies
then tell everyone.
they don’t let you do it 
the other way around usually
without a uniform or
some clothing to authorize you.

make sure you insult someone
today, publicly, damage a 
friendship a little.  maybe more?
maybe.  ah man you know
how to work this one — dramatize
the stink in the backstory.  

go to work mad, to love mad,
to play mad, madden at the sight
of pets and cupcakes and the only person
you’re talking to all the time, twenty-five
eight, twenty eight fifty two, three hundred 
sixty five days stuffed in a straitjacket 
called a year, no wonder you are mad
at your own dark face and whitey-white hands.

goddamn it you are fifty two and so certain,
so clear, when fog is raised as an issue
you see through all the way to the other side
and it’s foggy there too.  so why 
do why at all?  just breathe and fog inside you
so that’s all there is.  you’re so clear
about the fog.  claim you don’t know
what you’re supposed to be

but aren’t you that now?  because you are 
so obviously just that:  straitjacket model.
big mad angel.  biracial ghost.  
someone no one ought to give a fuck about
but they do.  goddamn, what idiots
to love you the idiot as well.  give up your arms
because you don’t need flesh to hug 
when no one’s gonna need a hug, when no one
has ever seen you do it so no one
expects anything from you anymore. 

and after all
you just told everyone you killed all those babies 
so who would ever
hug you 
except a baby-killer like you?