Flesh, well feared, takes leave
with a gestured hip.
The face burns.
Patience, my Heart.
Lent will come. The poor will
know their place again.
The yoke will settle, where
it has been for the better
part of our years.
They have not been forgotten (do not
fear their remembrances).
They are poor.
They forget. Spirit alone cannot employ,
buys no bread,
warms and waters nothing,
turns to ash on their foreheads.
Enough time has passed.
They love out of step with reason,
have learned to be thankful
when music stops and streets go silent,
except for the slow, scraping strides of street cleaners
whose disgruntled groans follow last lap like an epidemic.
And what is the favored pose for suffering people? (Who but we can say?)
Bent over
Hunched
Hollowed
Fasting
Waiting
like lazy drosophilae, dancing
near the sour mouths of drunkards,
who mark their rough cardinals in corner gutters before turning half-dead for home
—that surveyed nonterritory of home.
Where is your revolution, Lover,
your activism,
your arrogance?
Where is your fury?