KS Culbreth

I have scoured these streets

I have scoured these streets where walkers
talk work, politics, and pregnancies;
where camisoled flimsy-bloused women
smoke quickly with arms folded
nervously around their breasts
together in a white haze of fantasies;
where the savory steam of pungent
franks and mustard drifts along
the corner, and wolfing, gnawing, chewing men on
benches consume through mouth and eyes
(watching paired women walking, talking
confidantes) consuming the meat of
existence.

And I have stumbled in the rubble,
laid in the grit; I have been mistaken
for a rag, scarred by trolley rails
and blinded by a funhouse of mirror
and glass, and no use to you, have washed,
refreshened my face in cupped hands full
of your spit.

The vacated buildings dilapidated that
puncture and tear my blue canopy with
each of their forgotten histories, shade
me from the wind of your waving
hands (I stay to their lee side when the
storm of your raging disappointments
frightens me to shudders).

My air fouled by your exhaust, my waters
underground muddied by your
excess, I sleep in the cool sea of
kind green eyes lid-shielded with
mudred earth. That sacred hour when
I am alone, I tend the wounds of your
average day, replenish for your ravenous
consumption, clean after your cycle of
consuming, oozing excesses, endless
evacuation.
Gather!
(each of you a lord
over yourself)
Gather!
(has not all been
created for your provision?).
Gather.
I provide the fuel for your history,
individual and collective,
and the rationale for your
failure and carry that burden as I
would hold your hand some summer
walk along these streets, if you but
knew that even a shadow’s soul
needs a moment of love.