I breeze through the friary door
with a light jacket and a prayer
Melrose is a world
The streetsweeper
kindly brushes aside
all antagonizing ghosts
An addict
bent to the bone
reaches up to hand
the child her fallen teddy bear
The sidewalk vendor
fresh from elsewhere
carefully spoons each soul
his watermelon blessings:
cool juicy light.
*
Why shouldn’t we sit on the city bus
the way we sit in our choir stalls?
*
See the man
on his cardboard carpet
slumped against the storefront windows
hugging his knees
the way you hug your knees on your bed at night?
Who doesn’t hope for the same dream?
His poor unbathed body
yours freshly soaped on a clean fitted sheet
Two hearts in terror of tomorrow
and the long night between
Two souls smacking the marrow
they suck from the same bone
*
Always remember this:
everyone’s fingernails grow
their own wild cuticles
even Christ’s.
*
Life is just too short not to live together
way too long to live apart.
Joseph Michael Fino, CFR is a priest of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. His work has been published with Arthouse2B.