Real Real Fast

Sometimes on the street a neighbor says

Ain’t you pretty and

How old are you honey?

And I say twenty-one and smile

In a hip-shaking way and we

Both laugh.

They say a girl like you is too pretty

To be wearin’ that frown

If my wound had been touched that day

And I smile with all my teeth and

Walk past the church on the way home.

The truth though is I’m just as much twenty-one

As I am a mathemetician

And that’s not at all.

I mean not at all.

The truth is my soul is an old chicken in a dirt yard

Can’t fly, just frets and pecks about all day long.

The things I loathe are chicken-wire, scary loud noises,

When things turn to mystery and I can’t know what’s

Behind it all or where it all goes

The truth is, a bird that can’t fly is being robbed blind

Unless it can run real real fast.