Morning at LaFayette Square

Morning at LaFayette Square
By Fred Shira

Hey You!
Lying naked cold on the century old sidewalk blankly staring upward into the sky
of the city morning light with your shriveled man-parts showing while your wino brothers hover close to the barrel of burning city wastes wearing the clothes they pulled from your body drinking your share of the wine, ?

Whose child are you?

Did you not suckle at your mother’s breast
taking in the life fluid that was to make you into the body destined for Potter’s Field
where only a very long number will mark your place in history?

Did not a second grade teacher scold you for not making your letters world ready
to tell your story of past, future, never will be, never was?

Did not some girl named Betty, or Martha called Marti, or Sally allow you, show you,
surprise you to find that thirteen year old girl breasts cup perfectly in a
thirteen year old boy hand?

Did not some old queer confuse you when his adult authority hand tried to touch
your fifteen year old boy parts and you being secretly aroused?

Did not Betty, or Martha called Marti, or Sally cry with sad happiness after you
made clumsy boy girl love in the back seat of your father’s car with you fearing
that the love smell would not go away?

Did not you know the joy fear of holding tight your diploma with your youth world
at your back and your life world at your front?

Did not you know places like Da Nang or Bien Hoa or Ia Trang where the life blood of
your generation was spilled leaving fused confusion holding together the world of
your father and the world of your son?

Did not you not leave behind a wife and family crying sadly that you were going, yet
relieved that you were gone?

Did not you not dream about building the world’s greatest building, or driving the
world’s fastest car, then making hand love while fantasizing making real love to
beautiful women only to have your dream fantasies fall short and splash
--kerplunk—rippling the last drink in the bottle?



Whose child are you that will have your obituary written on a police blotter as told
to a yellow call box while the next naked cold body seeks burning barrel wine
warmth not listening or looking or missing or even thinking about you?

Whose child are you that will take his last ride into his number only history in a
mournerless police van driven by an overweight Italian Irish Black Polish police
driver who will go home to Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and eat dinner while
watching Hollywood Squares?