Their Faces

Their Faces

(“Do not mistreat or oppress aliens, orphans, or widows…” Jeremiah 22:3b)

Have you seen their faces?
Or do you merely repeat the phrases you’ve read
that crawl across your screen?
Have you seen the shredded clothing hanging
from razor wire
in the river?
Have you listened to the babies cry,
do you understand the language that
drives the numbers through drought and desert
just to live without dying?

She wasn’t yet fifteen years old
and knew the streets far too well.
She was marked for resale,
she was a loss leader priced by
a shadow manager
and paraded at night on concrete.
She still had friends, high school girls
still wishing for prom. They knew her face
better
than the bargain hunters who bought her,
than the wheeler dealers who sold her.
They found her, midnight blue, hiding under
a dark gray hoodie. They invited her, childhood friend,
to a house with husband and wife, and two wide-eyed
preschool brothers. It was

Impossible.

Until someone dropped off a mattress,
another shopped for new clothes. A judge gave
emergency custody to a family that had no idea
what they were doing. But they did it, and so did
dozens of benefactors who surrounded that home
that housed a teenage prostitute for a fortnight.
Fourteen days, phone calls every hour, a family
one hundred
miles away took her in. She was no longer an
emergency, no longer a hidden face at night.

Have you listened to the babies who
have no voice but
your own? Have you touched the mud stretched faces
of crackling tears? Have you believed that, though you
are only one,
and they may be a thousand,
that fish and loaves can still be multiplied.
Can you open your hands to touch the faces that once
were only phrases on the news?

Leftovers From the Fridge

 Leftovers From the Fridge

(“Notice the innocent person, and look at the decent person, because the peacemaker has a future.” Psalm 37:37)

Bought and sold at the outdoor markets,
a price is paid for counterfeit. A price is paid
for every elongated elocution that batters the air
and supercharges constant fear.

Offered in unkempt homes,
a loaf of bread is as good as a
prospector finding gold. The children
are noisy, the neighbors are often mowing their
lawns at dinner time,
and the hosts apologize for only offering water
to drink.

Judged and juried, injured by those who know how
everyone else
should behave,
the best and simplest are barred from front row seats.
Sometimes they are locked out. Sometimes others walk out.
And the decent heart, sans deodorant, sans decorum,
dries out and shrivels where it should had shined.

Some sit in the round, faces to faces, less hidden
and invited to speak of god without interruption. Glow
ascends from the back row toward the center where,
all together,
the sacred meal is served.

Well, yes, I suppose sometimes it is fish and chips,
sometimes tortillas and guacamole, sometimes the
leftovers from the fridge. But the sacrament is the same
when all look with blameless eyes at the neighbor who,
barred from better doors,
shows up to partake. Shows up to
celebrate.