The light, arcing yellow
around the
bright kite wind
on which surfs
the weird bracing spring smell
of streets decomposing—
sensations like these
feel just like
the money in your pocket,
useless lumps
while they're inert,
currency
that must be
moved around
in order for it to matter.
But by now, you've
learned enough
to be shrewd:
you can't exactly
sell beautiful things
on any sketchy street-corner,
but you can't just go around
giving them away
for nothing, either.
You're a missionary now,
whose objective is—
the dispensation
of ministry
without religion,
of gospel
with no ugly
liturgy attached,
of godawful,
bloody, and
ritualistic sacrifice
that plays itself off
as inconsequential,
is performed
on the daily,
with a smile
and innocuously off
to one side.
Poetry
can never be
anything
as off-putting
as a vocation;
it's only a little
hot oatmeal
on a cold
spring morning—
wet eggs
and dry toast
for the drowsy
emaciated planet,
when it finally
wakes up
feeling hungry again
after fending off
the stomach flu.
