Carboard Boxes

Recently I have been making friends with the steam

rolling from street manhole covers.

For a second I thought I was talking with my old psychologist

but then the steam morphed into Rita Whats Her Name

- the whore everyone knows fucks married men.

I watched the prostitutes ice skate on their heels down Madison Ave

and frowned remembering when my dad

poured alcohol into a thermometer before

my sister killed herself and wrote

“down down down she goes

and where she’ll stop, nobody knows.”

Old men fuck me while I sleep

and I ask only that they protect me from frost bite

since I know one woman who lost her labia lips

in the blizzard of 96.

Young men fuck me while I’m awake

and it makes me wonder

whether I want to fuck baseball players

or make love to volleyball coaches.

I am getting ready to run with the kids

who can’t keep their legs closed.

You know, the ones who run

and never eat

or ever sleep.