44. I THOUGHT SLEEPING

I thought
sleeping with you
would be excusable

I thought I saw a woman
behind the paint on your face
your expensive smell & kept coats
and silly hostile giggles
of the lost & isolation ego trip
(yes in bed your body
     was very soft & very creamy
     Your bun made a hot
     tugging pipe     around my
              sliding      frankie;
     The soft war     mth of your
     thighs press     ed against my
     legs on both     sides
     You moaned    and pulled
at me with  your arms)
I saw in your eyes and empty simperings
high walls topped with bars
and the bars meshed with
barbed wire
     the only thing the wall stopped
     I think was the gray rain sky
     the wet scudding clouds (which
     bled black on the wall in passing)
     because I think
     the people they gave up
     already and forgot who they
     were and what it was that
     they were supposed to
be doing      other than     playing cards
or hanging clothes or sitting
unemployed in the plaza of
the     concrete/iron slum.
(I CAME—
a sick feeling—
and cried for escape.