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A Walk Down Delancey


by Carl Santoro


the large snowflakes
fall gently
onto my exposed
flu-ridden head

my 102.2 degree heat
melts each one
adding to the poisonous
liquid within me

bare-footed Jesus
greets me on Delancey Street
and coughs in my face

the lights of the Williamsburg bridge
glitter with wet stars
all lined up
and the whiter ones must lead up
to a heaven

Jesus puts out a smoke
crushing it into the snowy pavement
his barefoot twisting the life from it
as vapors escape out from under his
wife-beater tank top, just under the arm pit.

I cough
I reach
for the 
Williamsburg lights.
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