When I went out to kill myself,
I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a
man.
Running to spare his suffering,
I forgot
My name, my number, how my day
began.
How soldiers milled around the
garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all
that day
Their javelins measured crowds;
how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and
slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this
victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry.
Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh
has eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh.
Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my
arms.
--James Wright