Have you seen cars in the past
10 years have you heard
Voices followed them to the curb
Left out bowls of milk
Are you thirsty all the time
How thirsty how encamped
Your hair does it hurt
How would you describe
The polity of your parents
Ten words or less
Why or why not
Did you know every pit
Of you came through
A star some time
Ago do you think that is fun
Or kind of stupid
When you think about it
Do you think about it
Really dig in your soul
What would you say it was
Haunts you scares you up
History of drugs
Mental illness rope
History of self harm self worth
Self undesired undeserved
A take a strait a people
Undetermined
In the squall
In the streets looted history
Carried through found out can’t be kept
From us we are telling you right now
###
Roberto Montes is the author of I Don’t Know Do You, named one of the Best Books of 2014 by NPR and a finalist for the 2014 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry from The Publishing Triangle.
“Intake” originally appeared in FIGHT (TLR, Spring 2016).