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You felons on
trial in courts,
You convicts in prison-cells, you
sentenced assassins chained and hand-cuffed
with
iron,
Who am I too that I am not on trial or in
prison?
Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my
wrists are not chained with iron, or
my ankles with
iron?
You prostitutes flaunting over the
trottoirs or obscene in your rooms,
Who am I that I
should call you more obscene than myself?
O culpable!
I acknowledge -I expose!
(O admirers, praise not me
-compliment not me -you make me wince,
I see what you
do not -I know what you do not.)
Inside these
breast-bones I lie smutched and choked,
Beneath this
face that appears so impassive hell's tides continually
run,
Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me,
I
walk with delinquents with passionate love,
I feel I
am of them -I belong to those convicts and prostitutes
myself,
And henceforth I will not deny them -for how
can I deny myself?
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