Billy

Wallace’s boys

stood three deep

across four lanes.

Their rebel cry,

Get those god dammed niggers,

curdled my skin.

I ached for those

five-hundred

bloodied pilgrims.

Longed for calmer days.

My spirit meek

beneath bark.

Shade for brown bodies.

Only shame hangs

from the limb

turned blunt weapon;

billy club.

Bloody Sunday -1965, thwarted civil rights march.

Hospice

A medicinal rancidness

Permeates the air

Well wishers mill ‘round

The window that allows

This room to breathe

Drying mucus on lips

Which kissed me

Tenderly at birth

Savior

While on others
Thou art calling

She has become skillful at

Writing her name backward

Brushing her hair forward

Hiding a brow

Charred by radioactivity

Her skin clammy, pale from

Mainlining anti-carcinogens

Parishioners hover in hall

Sing “Here my humble cry”

Her voice fainter than

Droning IV

Before I can bend my knees

Touch the hem of her garment

She has slipped behind Your gates

Leaving

One breast

5cc’s of frozen lung tissue

Countless grieving hearts

Devotion

In sunrise

Between my slip

Into slumber

I kneel before our

Prayer hearing

Prayer answering

God

I am

His remnant

Immersed in a

Psalmody of praise

In supplicant surrender

Stretched out

In prayer

Imbued with the

Doing of it- devotion

His rejoice in

My reverence

Looses the

Holy Spirit

Glory weep

Fills my cup

To over flowing

Grace falls

Over the hearts

I've knelt for today

This daily

Laying down of

Hallow brick mortar

Paves my

Bridge to Christ

Oktavi 2007©