you taste the day age from ochre to sienna,
grinding its color in your mind
watching the sun burn to ashes through the wait
staring it down, staring it down
until it winces from realizing
that it has no power to make you yield
just as it never had power
to grant a yes.

you breathed life into yourself
and carried the footfallen dirt
of your third world into this first one
knowing that the timbre and reluctant pace of your voice
will always be more revealing than the fingerprints
you bring on your brown hands,
the color that you hide in your pockets,
masked in a new heritage
that shines a light on petty and trivial pleasantries
instead of humble,
this now-useless thing you had remembered to keep

and because of this, you are left wondering
what else is there to do
besides hard work and simple devotion,
besides abandoning your old ways
and accepting this false heaven,
besides mastering the microscope words
and regurgitating them when the right ears are listening

and no matter how hard you try
the line that separates the color of your palm
from the back of your hand
will always be obvious.

This pillar of Hercules
is an unthinking, unfeeling piece of rock
with no choice but to hold its ground
and jut its granite neck out to ships
proud that so many have canonized it
as the symbol of strength and fortitude and stability.

You stare at this rock
with your decades of service
to a world that has taken from you
your time, your good will, your money
your extra effort when no one was looking

And you quietly pass
with your hands in your pockets
Instead of holding, or being held in content.

I have done that, you say.
I am that, even with a choice not to be.

For hundreds of thousands of years,
we've been trying to figure out how to
articulate with our mouths, to build
unimaginable machines with our hands,
to try and fathom our own existence

and the best that we've been able to do
is scream and fight with each other, fear
what is beyond the horizon, and
****** each other's genitals because
we are bored out of our wits and have no idea
what to do next.

And when you look at us, and think that we
are laughing at you,

We are."

Watch the street's gutter for
movement, look at the reflection
against its water, it reacts
with concentric circles

find low points on telephone lines
see if they drip, see the telephone birds
not fly away, the larger ones
can take it for a while

find a moving car turn its wipers on, find
a car wash, see if it starts to empty, listen
to your hearing improve as vision gets worse
listen--there are more sounds

take your shades off then put them
back on, the glare is still there
stronger now, bouncing off new surfaces
put your hand out, your palm down, feel it

watch the others look up, take cover
running under roofs, but the wind is blowing
sideways, it doesn't matter, they get wet
they don't see it but they get wet

they look up but there's nothing to see
not like down here, where everything happens
it's on everyone's clothes, everyone's faces
it's the movement in the gutter.

You keep going until your limbs catch a fever
until your world becomes nothing but this one straining moment
rewarded by a globe of air that you gulp down like instant mercy,
giving you one more curl
one more step
one more crunch
one more push

one more past the number you thought was impossible as a child
back when everything made sense
before the failures and misfortune
and the million heartbreak deaths
that, compared, diminish this hour of agony
into nothing

and for one brief moment, your heart about to burst
it wills your blood to keep flowing, abandoning the past of regret
because time and gravity will never be as strong
as hope.

this is why you are made of steel.
this is why pain is an afterthought.

You knew that if you didn't stay on top of the beat
the beat would have its way with you.
Your prayer of music wouldn't be as sincere
if you had followed someone else's prayer.

Your sound, almost indecipherable
but we can hear your unrelenting effort, your patience
carved as a psalm for us, right now
transcending our pettiness and frailty
making us think that we can be better than what we are
because we can hear your music.
Yes, we can hear your music. Thank God.