lxxxix

somewhere, between the halls where

the powerful walk, and the

streets where they scream for power

scuffed by so many footprints

the truth lies, head bowed, rests

for a moment, and rises—

running--

there’s a world of men who would

make of the world a hallway

to walk down, who would shoot

hallways across the buildings,

through the houses, cut their

avenues from the alleys

build their streets through and from

the lives of others,

so there’s nowhere they cannot tread

the truth flees before them—wild-

eyed, cast itself sideways

if you should meet me in the alley,

and you promise me you are no maker

stoop and help me track its traces,

in the dust and refuse,

if you see a flicker of motion, sideways,

that is the mark of its passing

walk the trail with me, quietly

through the leeside,
we will go slowly together

lxxviii.

the churches of the unwieldy

are scattered across the street

buried in office buildings, along

the gutter thick with leaves,

the parking lot at the edge of the light

the churches of the unwary rise high, or

low, thickly bricked,

with bricks or chatter, sometimes choked

with song—

the churches of the weary are no church

that we have yet seen, are passed

invisible, in pieces, from hand to hand

carried in the eyes, and the brush

of two passing, slowly, in the street