Kids From Skid Row
Elissa Moody
Count your diamonds in dog years,
eat your supper on serviette.
But a bed for a king,
then tally the threads on two hands.
We bite out thumbs at upturned noses, sky high salutes of the
well-to-do.
Driving past McMansions in a beat up Chevrolet, that old girl
smelling like tobacco
mildew and sweat, and we’re shouting
I am Lord of the Slum!
Emperor of Shantytown!
the Back Alley Baron!
Pop a bottle of Cooks bought with pocket change, and keep
singing that sweet squalor song.
I rule gloriously over my band of witches bums and broads,
they sing out to me in derelict voices
through fever dreams
Three cheers for the panhandlers! For the thieves! For the whores!
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