Homeless Hygiene

after a week of homelessness
the confluence of one's bodily odors
carries a humiliation all its own
the scrotum cries out for salvation

When personal sanity must be sacrificed
for uncleanliness is also of the mind
one realizes that poverty is a spiritual state
not disconnected from a corporeal economy

that there is moral poverty
intellectual vacancy
the culturally disinherited
the people in whose minds history
has not taken root

you've got to get some of that gold bond powder
doesn't matter how you get it just do
and some hand sanitizer

take your socks off
rub your feet down until you feel
the heat from the alcohol

then squirt some gel onto a dirty sock

and now the nuts
that's right
focus through the burn
the pain is temporary but the clean
raw feeling lasts into the afternoon sun