August, 2006

A Woman Gives Food
for Sarah Menefee

A woman gives food to a hungry hand.
The law says that it is contraband.
That law must fall, must lose its teeth,
must gum along the desolate streets
and come to the line where blessed soup
is smuggled in between the lips,
and know subversion for what it really is
and how this mean-lawed land is dead without it.

- Jack Hirschman

Jack Hirschman is Poet Laureate of San Francisco. This poem was published in his book, "Endless Threshold." A thousand-page anthology of his long poems, called "Arcanes," is now in print. Send $64 (or $120 to include artwork inserted in the book from the author). Send to Jack Hirschman, POB 26517, San Francisco, CA 94126. For speaking engagements, call Speakers for a New America at 800-691-6888.