Walking along Avenue D by the housing projects,
I noticed they wear clothes that do not fit,
baggy jeans many sizes too big, dangling
around their ankles, falling past their ass and
balanced on their rump with just a tightened belt.
I noticed that their t-shirts hang down beyond their knees
like over-sized night shirts, dresses, or hand-me-downs
enveloping their small frame like a cotton blanket
sagging to the ground.
And I know about unconscious motivations,
subconscious revelations, manifesting in the flesh,
silent gestures of the body – emotional reality far from words.
And I know they do not fit into the economic system of our getting and spending, the international-business-school-corporate offices-in-3-continents, headquarters on-Wall Street Dow Jones-Industrial-revenue-cost-cutting-G8-policies of year-over-year GDP budget-growth forecast-quarterly-earnings-we-must-pay-dividends-to-our-stockholders system.
They are too small, too little for the big money-making scheme
that supersonic jumbo-jet-sized, overwhelming monopoly of a board game, dangling above their heads,
falling out of reach – all balanced precariously
by just a belting, on their rumps.
