Fabric so Thin

Fabric so Thin

(“Truly I tell you, the tax-gatherers and the prostitutes shall enter the kingdom of heaven ahead of you.” Matthew 21:31b)

Next time let us know what rules you are referencing
before you throw someone out of the game. Meant for
safety,
you were too hasty
in using them for exclusion.

Here I am, scratching my head over
the notices sent, phone calls spent
setting fire to feet and repeating tales
20 years old and crinkled around the edges,
a number that alleges, a word that stretches
fabric so thin we see through the attempt
to fabricate a hobo-sin; exempt from your
own temptations.

Here I watch the triumph band, stomping
lighter boots front of the parade-ground procession;
the torn dresses dance the breeze restitched we play;
the red eyelids speak stone sober day-end’s grace;
the forgotten fly with the beatified,
the tortured cry, now beautified,
the lame skip upon the hilltops
while the blind twirl like toddlers unwatched
hearing better than grownup ears.

Where will I march, come the day that poor
and lonely meet to celebrate down homely street
the rainbow once mere blood-red
that finished the world’s catalogue and
turned it on its edge.