The tourists who come
Didn’t come this year
The restaurants are empty
The motels are vacant
The water on the lake is still
In the park, a passing Accord says
What we’re all thinking:
What y’all really want
*
But all this is subject to change
The length of a day
The size of a tee
The quality of methamphetamine
The love, and not love
Made within us
*
The sound of a fist on a man’s face
Is the body’s great gift
It’s hard to believe—like fear
You watch the energy ripple
From fist to cheek
From fist to rib
From sun to earth
Body to mind
And back to body
The book of today wasn’t written
But now it is:
Two cousins, heavy and red
Swollen fruit
Oozing on the ground
*
In a world without heaven
The body forsakes the mind
So the mind jettisons the self
Church bells ring through the woods
But do they move the trees?
Do they cause the birds to cry?
Wander within yourself
And see the people kneeling
See how few answers our dreams contain
*
In college, I learned big words
Then we’d give each other
Black eyes for fun
The assigned texts asked
Are men forged in strife?
Or self-directed leisure?
But who maintains
The great ledger of our lives?
Us?
Or the seven men
Standing around a rotted picnic table
At the edge of the park?
*
You might ask how I know
The two men are cousins
And the answer is—
I just do
The tall, thin one walks around
But the younger, heavier one
Doesn’t get up
He stays down, dirty and defeated
Spitting rehearsed threats
Mirrored, catalogued
And carried over to his new form
*
But the self, so long composed
Won’t return on its own
Not that easy—
Ask the heart, ask the body
Ask the mind
Real men don’t know what they want
*
They say if men move as water moves
And the lake is still
Their energy produces a film
A face can be opened
And a face can be closed
Trapped in this thought
God’s not dead
But he is getting older
And he was never young to begin with
*
Some men finish what
Other men start
And some men love to start over
Look close enough
And the edge of the park
Has everything in it—
A tree, a rock, an old boat
Battle hymns rattle the bandshell
With no one listening
The seven men turn blue
And the air turns green
A new shadow raises
Its hands in victory
 | A guest post by
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Beautiful and wise. Thank you.