the quartered cork luck

that i stole for ice cream joy

is haunting me now

because i’ve known poor

six-dollars-an-hour poor

and i’m done with it

i want Cliff House lunch

with doily-defined ketchup

and wealth we lived by

i want the incline

without the vicious mountain

and only my friend

i want my freedom

my thirteen-year-old best friend

and no poverty