A tattered yellow kite, caught upon a cable
Tightened its tether to the evening air.
“I’d rather have my Little Daddy’s hate
“Than any square-fig’s type of square-fig love.
“Who lights my cigarettes ’n says ‘I love you’—
“All of that. My Little Daddy’s hate
“Is more beautiful I think
“Than any square-fig’s love.
“Because what my Daddy feels for me he feels it in his heart
“It’s how a person feels, not what, that matters.
“Saying ‘I love you’ when he don’t feel a thing
“Love or hate or anything in his heart
“Don’t do a thing for me.”
—Da-aa-dee
Da-aa-dee
A smiling child moving her fingers
Through the dark smoke-tangle of her hair
Who owned one record all her own—Rock Love—
But no record-player.
Whose clothes her little daddy hocked but not his own
(And once, in lieu of clothes, deposited her
One whole hockshop morning; for collateral.)
“My little Daddy likes to make his brag to me:
“ ‘Little Baby, I made a who-oor out of you
“ ‘You ought to hate me something terrible for that.’
“I’ve never let him know he never made no who-oor out of me—
“It was me made a pimp of my Little Daddy—”
—Da-aa-dee
Da-aa-dee
One-stocking-on-one-stocking-off country-talking whore
Poor piece of trade whose home was any numbered door
Whose Daddy never learned what was in her heart for him—
Thank God for country pimps who go from town to town
Who when they say they’ll do a thing
They’ll do it if it kills them.
Who aren’t afraid of County Sheriffs or State Police
Or soft clothes dicks or Justices of the Peace
Who aren’t afraid of anything.
And whisper then:
“I made a who-oor out of you, Little Baby.”
Thank God as well for Little Babies who whisper back:
“You’re the best connection a hustling woman ever had
“And I’ll go all routes with you.
“I might have married some old square-fig type,
“Little Daddy, had it not been for you
“ ’n never even got to know I was alive.”—
Da-aa-dee
Da-aa-dee
“Don’t douse the light,” you told me
“Just hang some old tie over it
“Else I’ll sleep till day
“Daddy says I got to be back home
“Before the trolleys stop
“So’s I don’t spend his good money riding cabs—
“I take care of Daddy in the little things
“So’s he’ll take care of me in the big ones
“ ’n if I’m not a good girl he’ll stop taking money off me.”
If Little Daddy missed his morning fix
It would be all your fault again of course—
Piteous girl who owned a wristwatch with one hand
Its hours as unreal as her own
Who took such care of Daddy in The Little Things
Asking from hour to hour,
“What time it is?
“What time it really is?”
Then warned me dreamily going on the nod:
“Baby, don’t let my monkey in.”
Your hair flowed dark across the pillow’s white
Your heroin-colored throat at last breathed peace
I kissed your hair yet dared not breathe your breath
“Babytalking whore,” I said, “Goodnight.
“Goodnight.”
That night the chimney-stars wept ice
Wind tossed light from lamp to lamp
Black trolley-buses raced the moon.
I never let him in.
Tonight the proud new thruway forged of iron, steel and stone
Courses without a stoplight state to state
Above the rails of trolleys we once rode—
Iron that now lies twisted under stone.
These paving-flares that burn so separately tonight
Burned each to each where once we went
Along old walks that led us always home.
And sleep, that lifted me so light along your side
Now toils with labored breath behind me all night long
Until between two walls of billboards
That many washday rains have lashed to hangnail tatters
Dream upon dream of the same cheap street appears:
Whereon the same dark peddler waits; his cap across his eyes
Hawking a single tie.
All pass and not one buys.
“What time it is?” he whispers as I pass—
And winks too knowingly—
“What time it really is?”
It was that time we kissed
Where pigeons made a city skyline strut
It was that hour of waiting for a green-eyed El
Made out of dusk.
It was that moment when your high-heeled step
Down an uncarpeted hall
Made arc-lamps burn more bright all over town.
“I never chippied on my Daddy until now,” you said.
We were kind to one another before love
And kind again after.
“ ‘You were a hare on the mountain’—
“Daddy tried to put me down one time—
“ ‘When I fired your way you were done for.’
“ ‘I was done for before ever you took aim, Little Daddy,’
“I filled him in,
“ ‘Every sport in town was firing my way two full years
“ ‘Before ever you came calling
“ ‘Bringing me caramel candy as if I’d never seen the back room of a bar.
“ ‘With your haircut out of Boys’ Industrial
“ ‘And all the town sports laughing because you thought
“ ‘Nothing had changed since you’d been gone.
“ ‘I wasn’t no hare on the mountain when you fired, Little Daddy.
“ ‘I was pigmeat. ’N you were the only one who didn’t know.’ ”
The old connection of the wind knocks once, then leaves
To go on blowing snow from roof to roof.
Along a hallway strangely like a street
I hear again your swift heel-tapping step.
I never guessed how far the boundaries of night could reach
How very dark how very wide how very cold
Beyond the country where old tie-vendors sell.
In a skirt too short and heels too high You left in a boiling rain.
The coldest that ever fell.
Upon the just-before-day bus I saw a woman
The only one who rode
Look wanly out at streets she used to know
“And there I went“: “And there I slept”: “And there I rose.”
She came forever toward me walking slow Saying zaza-za-zaza-za-zaza.
Walking slow.
The bells of St. John Cantius ring out midnight mass
An unprotected night-bulb casts refracted light.
The El moves overhead on wheels that have no rails.
My babytalking whore: Goodnight.
Goodnight.
All day today old dreams like snowdreams drifting down
Faces once dear now nameless in a mist
Return from hospital, prison or parole
Mouths that once the mouth of summer sweetly pressed
Saying zaza-za-zaza-za-zaza
W
ithin a rain that lightly rains regret.