Children of Rabies by Samuel Fox

We were profusely vulgar
our tongues knew slurs like piercings.

We were strong-headed, skulls
impenetrable like German bomb bunkers.

We knew little to none about
manners: the streets taught us

the art of voodoo calligraphy,
karma charisma (what comes around

will go around only if you get caught).
We would howl like dogs whenever the cops

reared their coiffed hair or fat, bald scalps
and like bloodhounds, they sniffed our cars

looking for a sign of weed, stench of youth.
We told them they could sniff our exhaust

when we rolled away. We too were
looking for a sign, a symbol, a ray of light

from heaven to beam the way out
of Slumsville, off oppression’s depression:

we couldn’t taste the foam in our throats, yet
we were hungry for something more than we

could ever sink our teeth into: and not one
of our lost fathers would throw us a bone.