Mile 2
Broken bottles and
chicory flowers in the
harsh morning sunlight
An accidental
memorial bouquet for
this shattered roadside
An untended stretch
of lonely city sidewalk
I traverse with haste
Fading zoo murals
weather off the concrete of
a silent playground
Vacant windows of
a crumbling convenience store
reflect the traffic
And I run past them
stretching my stride to hurdle
the cracking curbs
The pastor recites the reading
“Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s
And unto God what is God’s”
But he mangles the meaning
He says that Jesus taught us to
be obedient to two masters
and to serve the heads of state
wherever they are leading
Serving under arms when called
to kill foreigners on foreign soil
who worship God a different way
A cross all Christians carry
But to speak up respectfully
when the church says God’s law is higher
like when babies are aborted
or homosexuals marry
bombus alights on
morning glory, blossoming
above rotting trash
the vines extend their
tentacles upward, fighting
to pull down phone lines
the purple trumpets
sound a silent clarion
for reinforcements
the untamed backyard
grasses respond to the call,
overthrowing the fence
somewhere, a mower
rusts in the shadows while birds
and vermin rejoice.
I'm flying to San Francisco,
Somewhere above Kentucky
The sun has set slowly behind a mountain range of clouds
Anvil Thunderheads tower and flash
The sunset glows through gaps like the embers of a campfire
Cirrus, a passing fog of ice
is the ceiling, and cumulus the floor
The clouds form snowy praries, glaciers and caves and rivers of light
They thrust up like cotton fists
Float past like man-o-wars, their tentacles of rain washing the hidden ground
The bright, thin sky reflected in their wisps.
betrayal of trust
in increments of dust
still feels like boulders
It cannot be swept
out the back door with a broom
or under the couch
Like crushed glass it cuts
from hidden floor crevices
long after breakage
