Trek
What are you carrying in the backpack, sister?
I’m carrying my life before, out of disaster.
Where are you taking your children now, sister?
To a land west of here, where there’s no master.
How long will you walk with your sorrow then, sister?
Till I hear him calling me, in the hereafter.
The Perilous Void
Lectern, cameras, mikes deceive as the speaker relieves himself openly
of speech, of yea/nays, of un/truth yet oddly is, beyond all others in the
high-ceilinged room, sure-footed round the sweet self’s needs. POM POM
goes each new thwack of the I AM as a dozen aides fumble to translate;
proffer lacquered trays of the latest delectable freedoms. Do not under
-estimate the fizz in this, the thermal heft of each safety as it expires, of the
done, undone, and take each kind of care, then: marking
each hectic word as off it cries; shoring up our own.