Fucked and fucked-up people
segregated to
corners of the city,
Talking to themselves
or lost loves,
fathers they hated
sisters they lusted
Why are we so afraid?
I cross the street to
avoid the emaciated White woman
toothless
in the dirt-stained underpants
droopy in the back
I give wide berth
to the heavy-bodied black man on the sidewalk
wheelchair on the left of him
cement city trash can on the right
his only illusion of shelter as he
lifts one cheek to relieve himself.
What the fuck is wrong with us?
I ask myself with indignant righteousness
as I avoid his eyes when
walking by.
© Sabrina Santa Clara, 1989
About This Poem
I grew up poor. But the poverty I knew had a roof on it. Nobody I knew slept outside, and I had never once walked past a person living on a sidewalk until I moved to San Francisco.
That was the culture shock, on so many levels. Not about being poor, but about seeing what poor could become. I’d had my own indignities by then, but we acclimatize to whatever we’re used to. This was outside the range of what I could dissociate from.
These two particular people, and the shock I felt at seeing them, have stayed with me for almost forty years. And they were opposites on the outside. White and Black. Woman and man. Emaciated and heavy-bodied. Which speaks to the undiscriminating nature of houselessness. Whatever category we are quietly relying on to keep it away from ourselves — that’s a lie.
What I can’t get out from under is the last three lines. I was furious about it. I was righteous about it. And I still crossed the street. So — culpability, and an absolute overwhelm about what to do.