Spitting Flames and Open Robes

she was spitting flames with her rotten teeth and wandering about
the yard in a loose yellow bathrobe that showed off her folding
knees and i wondered why she smoked so many cheap
cigarettes in the morning as she sank her lips into her coffee
cup and whispered Mississippi John Hurt songs
to herself over the grind and churn of the garbage
trucks and the chirping of the ghetto blue jays picking
at puddles of sewerage from the women's
prison down the road and I wondered why she wore rubber dish gloves
to weed her garden of dread and because i never had
the guts to talk with her, maybe that's why I just wanted to taste her
so badly and rest my face against her failing breasts hidden in that dirty thin robe....
but with little chance of speaking to her, tasting her seemed unlikely,
so instead of feeding off the old stranger with the bucket knees
and burning teeth, i just watched her move around her yard
in her rubber dish gloves and open robe, smoking bargain cigs
and whispering lyrics of a dead blues man song and thought to myself,
"yes, we could really share a life together."