RAG BOY

This poem was published in the Orenaug Mountain Publishing anthology “Tough Kids”.

Rich Boy

with high cheek bones

came to the city

because he read the Village Voice and Jim Carroll

played Lou Reed in a broken tape deck

found Jesus’ Son in the middle of the road

now running out of money

can’t call home

can’t find a friend

Meanwhile

Rag Boy

needs twenty bucks

needs to eat

needs to get a haircut

needs to buy a subway token

needs to do something

that requires lucre

so he goes to a bank

at St Marks and 2nd

Rich Boy

never wanting for anything until now

walks up to Rag Boy

who doesn’t want to catch the train and call it a day

no financial adviser telling him to skip that taco

that haircut

that comic book

telling him to look for a copy of Ulysses in the street instead

to kill that time

“Hey man

got anything you can spare”

Rich boy’s clothes cost more than

the room that rag boy was living in

an hour and a half away

and here he was asking for dough

“Good lord man”, Rag Boy wants to say

“get hired by a boutique

get hired by a bookstore

get hired as a bar back

get hired as a barista

get hired as a coat check at Coney Island High

go home and tell all the stories of living in the big city

maybe I’ll buy your life for twenty bucks

if you would you sell it to me”

But instead rag boy mumbles

“got nothing for you, man”

shuffles down St Marks to some other random ATM

still needing that dough

While Rich Boy

hits up someone else for cash

or maybe someone gives him the lecture that Rag Boy skipped

and he uncovers the fortune we all speak of

but that Rag Boy can never find

because he needed that money for that taco

right now.