Poem: “Notes on Poverty”

Was I so poor
     in those damned days
that I went in the dark
     in torn shoes
and furtiveness
      to steal fat ears
of cattle corn
     from the good cows
and pound them
     like hard maize
on my worn Aztec
     stone? I was.

“Notes on Poverty,” from Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey: Poems 1991-1995.Copyright © 1996 by Hayden Carruth. Reprinted with permission from Copper Canyon Press.