when i needed help

(Down the road from your memory track 9)

when all I knew was blackness

Mama and I swam within your blood

I could feel you toil

but I was safe and warm

‘til you offered up my innocence

in the wailing of the storm

you plucked me from oblivion

and I was freshly born

now as I travel    many folks

have helped me    just yesterday

outside the 76

a filthy looking woman

pointed out the police 

officer giving tickets    while she swayed

said in her life all she wanted 

was to be lovely and well paid

on Vashon there was a trans man

who found me drunk outside

Sporty’s    he brought me in

from the midnight mists and fed

me cake with lemon glaze   while

I told him how we robbed that bank 

               and of my pains

behind every kindness I feel

 your touch and remember when

it was just us   Mama    

how you always kept me safe   and warm

now I’m out in the wilderness 

            and the road is full of mud

 on either side old iron-eyed

 men fighting to the death 

because they’re cold

but the kindness of a stranger 

needs no words        just form

in a little hilltop village

a duwamish woman let me rest

I was with her for the salmon run

like milk flowing from your breast

and coyote made the first fish weir

cuz he was hungry and alone

but when I think of you

it’s like shelter from the storm