I was only a young man <br />In those days. On that evening <br />The cold was so God damned <br />Bitter there was nothing. <br />Nothing. I was in trouble <br />With a woman, and there was nothing <br />There but me and dead snow. <br /> <br />I stood on the street corner <br />In Minneapolis, lashed <br />This way and that. <br />Wind rose from some pit, <br />Hunting me. <br />Another bus to Saint Paul <br />Would arrive in three hours, <br />If I was lucky. <br /> <br />Then the young Sioux <br />Loomed beside me, his scars <br />Were just my age. <br /> <br />Ain't got no bus here <br />A long time, he said. <br />You got enough money <br />To get home on? <br /> <br />What did they do <br />To your hand? I answered. <br />He raised up his hook into the terrible starlight <br />And slashed the wind. <br /> <br />Oh, that? he said. <br />I had a bad time with a woman. Here, <br />You take this. <br /> <br />Did you ever feel a man hold <br />Sixty-five cents <br />In a hook, <br />And place it <br />Gently <br />In your freezing hand? <br /> <br />I took it. <br />It wasn't the money I needed. <br />But I took it.<br /><br />James Arlington Wright<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hook/
