Poetry 365

Lit votives tongue the air, horizon
red with the approach of dawn.

Brake lights strobe downtown,
the birds do not wish us to rise,

the results of gunshots well known.
Headlines stitch a fatwa across

each white-eyed gaze as Time
reaches for mirror shades,

eyes like shot deer salting
their wounds in pacific waves.

Lit votives tongue the air.
She murmurs inside a dream cave

beyond moonset, nudging into a warm
scent. Fossil wings gaining feathers, she flies

unalone, her lover quietly placing her tea close,
ridge spruce silhouetted by lacteal dawn.

Rush hour firing up, the street ready to splice
through faith at the drop of a sneer, sidewalk throngs

gazing at sliced sky, cement, children
at bus stops making churches with their hands.

Lit votives tongue the air, she dreams
beyond moonset, her thighs catching light.