proclamation of the savior.
2005-08-06 8:25 p.m.
count all of my teeth, and give meone year for each that sings
against the steel, a synthesis of human
i am
eyeing open dumpsters behind grocery stores
and hotels
this is how the dead present themselves
patterns of used packages
used up, the people
are shells with cavernous faces
begging at uncomfortable passerbys
laughing behind turned backs
with shaking legs
i had never been in that position before, she said
because the homeless in l.a.
asked her for spare change
tell me, at this point, where the right becomes
right enough
what cost you're willing to incur
under the auspices of love
and i have so many secrets,
riled around my wrists
storied i could tell you
about where my hands have been
that could end our friendships
a story of acceptance,
the basement apartment
harbored criminals made so
out of contact with money
the great saint and the devil
held their heads in equal orbits
and each gave a hundred dollars
wondering at expenditures
a story of acclimation,
we became our profits
and could not turn blind eyes
to our own withering pockets
who cried out like children
in their last well-meant starvation
and left us passing by the hands
that claimed we might have saved them.