POETRY MONTH FEATURED POET: DODICI AZPADU

In honor of Poetry Month, I will be posting great poetry that is hard to find elsewhere. I begin with work by Dodici Azpadu, whose novel Saturday Night In The Time Of Life is one of my lesbian favorites. Dodici and I were once in the same poetry editorial collective for Common Lives Lesbian Lives, and I learned a great deal from her. Her website is https://www.dodici-azpadu.com/



When Generally
Assisted I lived
on 14th Street
with the used
cars and freeway noise

I exchanged
my shirt each
morning at 1:00 or 2:00 p.m.
in the Purple Heart Store

Gathering transfers
along Mission Street

I stopped where
one food stamp bought
enough burrito
to last all day

I walked 16th
Street eating and
if I could stand
the glare at Cafe

Flore where admission
for watching the afternoon
traffic was a re-fill
in someone's left

over coffee I sat

Occasionally friends
in a borrowed wreck
took
me to play sports
(I yawned from

bad nutrition between
spurts of running
hard) but
I slept well
those nights if
the shower ran
hot

I liked the darkness

most nights I walked
to tire myself looking
in the stores on
Mission Market Castro
or Polk
Friday and Saturday nights
I went to a bar dense
with women though

I carried depression everywhere
like a medicine
to control seizures
of clarity Sometimes

I tapped my foot


by Dodici Azpadu