For Renegades
by Jill James

There's lesbians in the Laundromat
A dame and her broad
stalkers like panthers
one black and one blond
I'm breathing
like a fire
strangled but wild
they see me
they say
"Haven't I seen you before?
With the old man?
With any old man?
With every old man?
Bleeding in the coffee shop?"
Voyeur of the raw
I'm like swan lint
a fake, a fraud
tangled in my silent riot
with nothing but soapy fingers,
rubber machine guns
and spaghetti teeth
to tear him to pieces

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