Men “Experiencing” Homelessness
Two men are tossing dice against a wall
outside Starbucks. Craps, one says. You lose.
A woman walking by says to a man beside her,
That should be illegal. I’m on a bench.
This thought in my head fresh from the mayor:
We now have a shelter for men experiencing
homelessness. So, homeless men are having
an “experience”? Which comes first, apprehension
of the situation, or the impulse to act? Jung
said that. We’ve screwed around a lot in this city
about the homeless, even erased a place
where some could congregate near the art center,
also a theater. But theater-goers complained:
the ugliness, the stench, violence, drinking, drugs…
I’m finishing my ice mocha, sun shining
on my battered Jung. The dice-throwers shake
hands. The winner claps, the “loser” picks up
a beagle puppy. No loser, I see. I wonder, as Jung
would ask, if the mayor gave any “flesh and blood
to her abstract intellectual frame” when it came to
men “experiencing” homelessness, but Jung
meant poetry, and what about the women?