I’ve been upbraided by the enemy of late
in the wee hours of the morning before even
the crows begin their rusty, grating caws.
It’s true, I call sidewalk chalk indelible.
It’s true, love is a boomerang refrain,
but what does that mean on a planet
where cyberbullies crush firewalls?
I have so many unread messages:
my inbox, a Holy Roman Empire
of subterranean catacombs.
It’s been yet no banner year,
no Goodyear blimp spelling out
Will You Marry Me? up above:
but I remain steadfast in hope.
If a prayer goes unanswered,
it wasn’t necessarily ignored,
but denied. Deny me, Lord.
Press me into service like a wildflower
preserved between sheaves of plastic
in a book meant to tame nature’s mane.
What would life be if we could not buy
pills to care for us and bear them home,
away from the druggist’s clinical pity?
Drug me to oblivion, sweet hereafter
consecrated by a Rolodex file of nuns.
Despite the military industrial complex,
big pharma, and corporate monopolies
I’ll rise: all-too-human intercessor
between the father and the son.
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