SID’S SONG
July 6, 1987

mind drifts with music to a far-away place.
Tepid breeze whispers through open window;
steady, shallow breathing; prostitute’s bellow.
Dusk yawns over city; humid air, languid, still;
sleep escapes, stay awake, swallow another pill.

Neon lights flicker, sirens scream by;
not far, a poor bastard lies waiting to die.
Fires rage, rats scuttle, cats howl, children cry;
dogs yapping, derelicts hacking, streetcars rattling, trees sigh.
Heroin eyes; purple, haze-coloured vision;
downtown core, seething roach-infested prison.

Streets stink, cannot think, feet blister, skin peels;
strain to distinguish what imagined, dreamt or real.
Fetid heat, constant thirst; lover dead, fear the worst.
Hole in arm, needle in hand, pain all gone; where’s the band?
Fever breaks in sunshine land;
Sid will take his final stand.

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Poem from Eden Refugee by Christine Bode
Reprinted by permission of Christine Bode