Loyalty Oath
Let evening winds carry a tsunami
of scents to her sleep, and let him with a smile like a paperweight and a craggy face of bark find his way, let the back door of the flower truck passing a corner of protestors open and release its petals to those humanists with raised placards, and let the bombs falling on cities fizzle like glittering sequins,
and let the potions in our words infect
the agents of war, may the sprigs of justice we plant in our syllables burst across the plains, let our howls burn like coals in the chests of our senators, let our freedom not be a breathless lie,
let the fragrance of citrus permeate our tomorrows. How long will it last, this cup of hope?
By the light of the dunes, a child wraps her arms around her mother’s neck and never lets go.
***
Carpe Diem
This is the Memphis of my life,
how I stand on a balcony pointing at the assassin’s gun smoke saying I AM A MAN.
My skeletal bones blast those old tombstones,
as though at an all-night church meeting,
dropping around-the-world bank shots.
I have my satchel of fingernail clippings
and gypsy hairs retrieved from combs
humming at the neck, but I need an independent sea, your quick flash of diamond juice,
how democracies work. Handled right,
we are neither violins nor violets nor spoons played on a blind man’s knee. You’ve paid the fare.
Your votes cheer me to no end.
You have the charm of a road novel,
your voice ribboning my quiet calls to justice.
Such investigations, on Labor Day no less.
Let’s bury our mics and hover like a new century.
