GETTING ANOTHER SHOT AT IT

Yesterday I had my fingerprints taken.
Human Resources will call me
sometime after the first
to give me a start date.
I don't know why
the gods have been so good to me:
jobs, women &, at times
Tennessee's strangers.
Most jobs & women I fucked up
while some fucked me up; why
the brass ring has come round
again--I don't know.

In fact, "why?" anything
I don't know.

But come January
I'll be going
to the Bronx
where I've only been
a few times before:
the old stadium
when the NY Giants
played in NY
& The Yanks
who built it;
the other times
I snuck in & out
to some south Bronx shit hole
to cop heroin when Fox
& Simpson Streets where known
as Ft. Apache.

I'll try to do
what I've done well before:
help some poor sonofabitch
and their family cope
with a bad hand
they were dealt
way before they knew
they were even in
a poker game.
I feel good
about that.
I think I can
do it
without trampling
on their ego
or succumbing
to my own.
Humility happened
grudgingly: my life
got ugly. No longer
was I a catch;
I was the caught.

But I got lucky:
some went to bat
for me. I owe it
to them to get up
to the plate
& not try
to hit it
out of the park,
but only try
to make
contact.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015