the lord dislocated
his shoulder
in his eagerness
to throw the towel
to the sweating fellas
in the courtyards
of a dismembered nation

Good God!
How do people
get used
to you!
when they return from
their failed quests
for love
for justice
for equality
& a freedom
that trickles in
slow and thin
like blood droplets
on a coffin-lid

there you are
invisible and overbearing
comfortably walking
in your white skin
as a cherry bloom
& you ask me:

“what do I do in the evenings?”
I say: different things,
I sit forsaken
in a clean well-lighted room
& watch the hopes of my people
fade out with the last flame of a desolate candle