Jones at Market

Gasoline and, inexplicably, cut grass waft in
on the mid-July breeze...

"Y'all got some grapes up in here?" asks
a brother on the make for some shake.

He's tall, big-boned and dark-skinned,
bearing a sheen of sweat under this sun,

which promises to bake us all to a crisp.
Footfall on light gray pavement and the sound

of an ambulance siren winds around
his much-abused inner ear.

Where once there was fear, now
there is hope.  A crease smooths from his brow.

How to Pray

Fervently I desire to be
some other's fixed
star, a true north
a fellow animal can't lose.

May I be
Ariadne's thread
wound through twists
and turns.  Ahead,

See a stone
corner.  Black streaks --
old water leaks --
mark it.  Dust

Is the only friend
expected.  Find me
just one more step
beyond.  The light

I seek to shine
will seem like the sun
glowing through alabaster.  White
is my quiet cloth.

Suburbia

Molten tears Pluto cried
at Orpheus's sad tale

fed the black stream
which runs down a hill

children sometimes climb
after school, knee-high

in dark green grass.
Their mothers call and call

them back to fatherless homes
filled with metal, with glass.

Starlight falls through roofs.
Dinners are silent, short.

The window sills bear
stones and twigs found while out

walking along that black
trickle.  It springs from a place

older than human love.
A face marks it.  None know its name.

The Interview Room

Do these white walls close in?

How many angels on the head of a pin?

When doctors pieced you back together again

Like biddies sewing a quilt so thin

Did you question then the army who killed

You night and day, broke against you, waves on a rock?

Who would have thought a myriad kalpas was so long?

A band of lost men played you for a song,

Helped you disintegrate until you were gone.