Minus all the Japs running down the streets of Tokyo, pointing and screaming.

One of the bennies of working construction
plumbing, in particular
is that you tend to see some shit sometimes
literally and otherwise
that most people usually don't get to witness.
Today, as you must've guessed
was one of those days.
My partner and I were welding up a gas main
at the courthouse in the lovely City of Newburgh.
The job's located at the corner of Broadway and 9W
and the gas station and accompanying parking lot
across the street from the site is
where several women of ill repute
crackwhores, if you will
sell themselves on a daily basis.

One character in particular is a mainstay of the spot.
Her bleached blonde hair and gaudy pink outfits
always give her away, even from hundreds of feet away.
The bubble-butt protruding invitingly through ripped jeans
the shameless wave she gives to passing cars
the slutty little dance she does
where she grabs her hair and stands up on the balls
of her feet like the shadow of some sort of stripper
without a stage--
they don't tell quite the same tale
that her sunken eyes, sallow skin, and shaky walk do
or how she disappears for a few days at a time
to God knows where and for God knows what.

One time a few of my coworkers watched her get picked up
by a John driving by. He parked in the back of the lot
her head disappeared in his lap for no more than thirty seconds
before the passenger door opened and she leaned out dramatically
to spit his wad onto the pavement. That short timespan proved
that she knows her trade as well as we know ours. My friends almost
threw up as they backed away from the window, went back to work.
Ten minutes later she was seen with a Slurpee from the gas station
probably fighting a losing battle to get the taste out of her mouth.
That's probably why the one time several months ago
when she asked me for a cigarette I just fucking gave it to her--
a cigarette, I mean-- since she obviously needed one more than I did.

As much as I try to paint a picture of this prostitute for you to pity
I can't deny the fact that she's been given a less-than-human
nickname on the jobsite, though I take no direct responsibility for it.
Yes, Cockzilla, as she's affectionately referred to, is quite the source
of entertainment when material and/or morale are low on the job.
Today my partner and I were standing on the marble steps
with a fellow pipefitter who will be taking over the job for us soon
when Cockzilla sauntered into sight on her usual corner.
We informed the newcomer of her given name and rank
and warned him not to venture too close
since she's proposed doing business with guys we know before.

We stared for a couple minutes as she did her stroll down
the sidewalk in search of her next customer to fund her next fix.
I yelled "How much?!" to get a rise out of my coworkers--
a harmless joke, she was out of earshot.
My partner took it to the next level, however.
He pulled a few crumpled singles from his pocket and held them
above the head of the third guy in our group
as if to say he'd pay for our unsuspecting buddy's tune-up.
Cockzilla saw his humiliating gesture and proceeded
to give him the finger; him, or all of us, probably the latter
since the three of us had been standing there gawking
for the past five minutes at a person with far more problems
and it made me wonder who the real loser was in that scenario.
I felt bad for making a spectacle of a person
forgotten and cast out by society, the same one that made her
so I picked up my tools and headed back to work, the two
forty-three-year-old men who still didn't get it
following a few steps behind, still laughing like junior high kids.

As I walked by a window ten minutes later
I didn't see her standing out there anymore
but noticed a cop car parked near where she'd been.
I couldn't tell if she was in the back seat or not.
I kept chewing my gum until my foreman
told me to put the tools away for the day.

No, sister: this one is not
in your vein, though it may be
just vain enough for you.
No fantastic events
no pretty colors or foreign fabrics
or cosmic anythings that neither of us
will ever live to see;
just something about someone
else's veins and how I don't know
just how thin they are these days.
My biggest criticism, my only one, in fact
is the same thing that you're banking on:

The algebra of human hearts
is far too horrific to pretend
to know anything about, and by the time
the first variable is even remotely identified
we'll be well on our ways
to our respective deathbeds
and not a moment too soon.