The Skin Of Teeth Poem by Anthony Liccione

As salt water sea, tears
of hate, tears of joy,
a pool full of chlorine
or pee, the sea
weed in your pipe
that looks like spinach
where time drowns in
leaves of paper
rolled into a joint

sour as lemon heads,
on the corner for work
that she so enjoys
the dollar bills to wipe
off the her filth
and needles

a black eye, a white guy
that sweats bullets-
running from drug dealers,
heels head up wicker,
sidewalk greets his face
noseful of snow and gravel
slip on a ice patch
under soft blown ghosts,
blood flows the same
red on a cold thick night
bandages on bruised sidewalks-

I have bled so in the middle
of manhattan, wondering
what man would offer his hand
to me as I lay on the sidewalk
bleeding with names graffiti
on the wall street of id.