(With gratitude to the boxer Willie Pastrano)

I look at ordinary people

with fancy suits and pretty dresses.

ordinary people with no scars on their faces,

who hide their personal scars to fit in

with other ordinary people.

if they were fish, I’d throw them back.

I want to be with real people.

real people with scar tissue on their face,

scar tissue on their heart,

their soul,

and a story to tell.

I go to bars where the rejected and forgotten hang out,

or street corners where the homeless try to survive.

I see the scar tissue on ex boxers faces

they wear as a badge of honor.

the grit of the street on the face of the homeless

they wear because they can’t wash it off.

real people are the poets of the street.

poets without an audience.

but unlike academic poets,

with a story to tell.