I just read about a convict
father of my friend--
another boy raised
in an iron-cold fireplace
who keeps winding up
in iron-cold places
as if jail means a home
you can always count on.
I don't know what to call a boy
with small fists knocking on doors
for food then carried off to strangers
till parents get him back
for awhile.
I think of how you bludgeon the world
with your sweet looks and mind with wings
but it jackhammered your life
anyway.
What amazing good/bad luck
to have it all
and nothing
at the same time.
I don't know what to call a grown man
with 14 families in his head and
no God around to help--you sure learned that,
father of my friend.
Prayers not answered in a world
that cannot make things right.
You hold up your hand
and make a circle between your thumb
and forefinger to show me
in that tiny patch of sky
a hundred thousand galaxies.
What God, you ask, can care about all that?
