a week of luminous
grey skies and damp heat
a lifetime of inadequate saviors
starlings and grackles and
dingy laundry refusing to dry in
overrun back yards
are you still here?
are you still expecting mercy?
absolution?
no one wants to know about love
when the house is on fire
no one cares about an indifferent god
but that’s all you’ve ever had,
fucker
four walls and a door and your
life seen through dirty windows
the ruined bodies of nuns buried in
the sandy soil between
one starving country and the next and
how much could we get for
their bones?
who puts these prices on
human misery?
we have been lying to each other
for so long now that
anything less feels obscene
