They call you Solomon
of the inner-city
because you look
for excavated rhythms
beneath the sun.
You listen to screeching
Mustang wheels cross
heated asphalt
& wild dog howls
filling the black lacquered sky.
You listen to guitars
that tear open
exhausted pubic bones.
To trumpets that
blow blue funk
through unmuzzled
cheeks of brass.
You spin out of your
dilapidated tennis shoes
& into a homelessness
only god can know.
They say the chosen
have been chosen.
But you still
look into eyes
of ritual killers, of
runaways in Chicago
train stations, of
the homeless roosting
beneath street lamps.
You look out of windows
& find pigeons huddled
on phone lines, find
the sun bleeding
like broken hymens
in midnight hours.
A mixture of raw meat
& fish, of refinery smoke
& intoxicated clouds.
Keep searching
for the feeling of
newborn sleep, of
mother breastfeeding
you with bright ideas.
Search each drugstore,
each downtown corner,
each ghetto that burns
you like a solar eclipse
& create a flaming path
to a crucifix burning
at midnight.

--for e