Aunt Haint

She would post herself in the way

in lines headed to transfer stops, to change,

or haunt intersections with four way full

scarecrow indecision, stop

on the corners of streets, and in the aisles

of buses, preaching only that

which has never left these crossings for road,

for choice    — the angry fear.       She seats

at the feasts   — Thanksgiving, any

holiday, any family place

setting   — the hunger of others’

satisfaction for herself, she seeks it

said this is what she deserves, if only

of herself. What she thinks she thinks

needs to be said whatever anyone

else thinks to be honest. So there

she sings from that part of the door

she’s never got through, the eye

which requires it all taken   off    down

all blown away    to get through to

that still naked-ness of clear again

even if she’s not        still, the voice comes through

that if we could listen as she is equally

raw    hear with meat and gut below the skin,

beyond the last violence,

to the silence just before

the bone      if we could still hear there

we’d hear

What hand can you offer one wanting

just to get even for what it doesn’t know what,

just to take out what it feels on someone else

to hurt because it can’t get at where it hurts      itself

to have to see to clear like a movie fakes

done seeing sharper than thought can cut to it;

what hand can you offer one that doesn’t know even

as a balance any other than more as my half and

who counts itself that much     more

and that more proofless     multiple unanswerably human hurts

because it can’t figure out a figure to answer how it wants

so count doesn’t count higher than want

and want also falls short enough to take someone down

for it

but there is no size for another to be cut down to but none

but death    this is so frustrating

You see me get the hell away from her

don’t you     quick as I can    and I bein nice

she act all girlfriend but that bitch dangerous

she pull so much rotten shit on peoples

she due to get her ass killed anytime

and I don’t tend to be nowhere near round

I ain’t getting cut down just for standin

next to her     I ain’t all that innocent

but I don’t be lookin for nothing I don’t deserve