Wretches don’t have to be born
in a corrugated tin-roof hut
in Kano or Chennai; an Arkansas
shack, a Hoboken walk-up would do:

life’s random majesty sometimes
makes hagseeds misshapen and white.
Transparent justice–invisible matter just
swirling between tenements in Newark?

All or Nothing in a mind
stumbles in the jigsaw of itself.
You’re Prospero if the pieces fit;
in the wrong puzzle, a beast.

Talking to Christ on the F train,
Help, cries Caliban—Nobody cares;
Ferdinand and Miranda
exit the subway and kiss.