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Prostitute

Greg G. Zaino

In ominous reflection over our
very last encounter,
I sit contemplating
where you might be; alive, maybe dead?

It was downtown near the old YMCA.
I had just exited the post office.
That’s where you left me gut shot.
My chest sunk- I was staggered.
It was a perverted scene of the surreal.

You were turning tricks.

I saw them standing back a bit;
the two meat eaters that were controlling you.
Just two of countless other ghetto pimps,
that subsisted in humanity’s shit pile.

An incensed gaze betrayed my frame of mind;
Anger, disgust & loathing evident.
With fists clenched I continued to stare...

For booze, dope, crack & pills
they were turning you out.
I watched as they stood on the fringe
hovering over your carelessness.
They whispered to one another
giving me the twice over.

Your far too milky white ass
was not intended for that neighborhood.
You were frightened; I saw that.
I also noticed the black & blue marks,
new & old, yellow & green.
As we sat to talk
it felt as though my entrails were spilling
onto my lap.

I did my best to remain cool,
yet screamed in my head.
You weren’t meant to be meat.
I was crestfallen over a lost friend,
a friend that at the moment,
I’d perform ruthless commerce for.
Aching to take them down,
make them lifeless,
I wanted to watch their blood pool,
spilling over & into the gutter.

You tried to laugh, divert my thoughts.
Like protracted death you laughed.

Once upon a time
you came to Newport, Rhode Island;
the city by the sea, from Georgia.
You were escaping a monster;
a monster you called daddy & wished a new start.
You found it Barbara, didn’t you...?

They knew it & at the moment, owned you.
I wanted to help, lend my hand, my fists,
lift you from that abysmal place.

You were harmless, helpless
not to be damaged;
not by the greezy Puerto Rican, Juan,
or that mountain of dangerous purple blackness,
his aide de fucking camp, Bumps,
...but there you were.

Babs, you were no daughter of the ghetto.
You rejected my gesture
with a casualness that haunts.
It seems your faith had always been
placed idly; misguided in trust.
I failed.
Instead of the laughing gal I once knew;
the last time I saw you,
I watched something soulless- lifeless,
something transformed.

A shabby, utilitarian sex thing sat next to me.
My eyes wet, I kissed your cheek,
nodded my head, pat your hand.

Piteously, I walked away not to glimpse back.
You were the sheep to slaughter;
... a prostitute.

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