Ani DiFranco, 1995
Tiptoeing through the used condoms
Strewn on the piers
Off the west side highway
Sunset behind
The skyline of jersey
Walking towards the water
With a fetus holding court in my gut
My body hijacked
My tits swollen and sore
The river has more colors at sunset
Than my sock drawer ever dreamed of
I could wake up screaming sometimes
But i don’t
I could step off the end of this pier but i got
Shit to do
And an appointment on Tuesday
To shed uninvited blood and tissue
I’ll miss you i say
To the river to the water
To the son or daughter
I thought better of
I could fall in love
With jersey at sunset
But i leave the view to the rats
And tiptoe back
I first heard this spoken on Ani’s '96 double live album. I was a profoundly disoriented fifteen year-old and it cracked my brain.
I think it’s safe to say that “Jabberwocky” in elementary school and “Tiptoe” in high school are THE formative poems that are my personal exceptions to Emerson’s rule that we do not remember the books we have read any more than the meals we have eaten, and nonetheless they have made us.
I remember Tiptoe making me.
That’s wonderful! I’m quite surprised that poetry impacted you so young. It took me noticeably longer to really garner an appreciation for it, and even longer to call it love.
I think my formative poems were (don’t judge me too harshly for being stereotypical) The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Raven. The Raven was the second poem I ever memorized, and though I could hardly recite it in full now, I am still deeply familiar with it.