on greed
BY CATHERINE PIERCE
Today I want a city. Today I want sugared almonds
in a city, strange almonds, a strange city. Today
I want the diesel smell of a strange city, its strange pigeons,
its strange buildings casting shadows like sculpture,
like scepters. Today I want a strange city to crown me,
I want to wear a strange city like a diadem,
I want to hold the word diadem in my mouth
and know it will never dissolve. I want to break
my teeth on that word and I want to know my teeth
will never break no matter how hard I bite down.
Today I want a jeweled diadem, real jewels and rare,
I want my jeweled head high and heavy, and I want, too,
oxblood boots and late October and a letter
that opens Dear planet, dear smokescreen, and today
I want to be tall, tall in a strange city, tall
and stalking down strange pavements surrounded
by strange pigeons and shadow, today I want
to be a stranger in my own story, heroine
of my strange story, booted and diademed, unashamed
of all this greed, I want my shadow strange
against the sidewalk, so tall, so quick, and though
I almost wrote for the end of this poem
that I’m not even sure I know her, here is my greed again,
and here the right ending: I know her,
I know her, and I hold it in my mouth like gold.
