The world is at least as large as the people
I have met, many of them hungry. Micah
lived in Austin, a panhandler with a guitar
who survived on soup and prayer. He had
a group that met for both on Wednesdays
when the church handed dinner out for free.
They’d inhale in a frenzy, snap the cartilage
off chicken bones and into their cheeks.
They smoked imaginary bowls of the holy
ghost. Ecstatic, took fake shots of the spirit.
Howled into their prostrate fits of worship.
While I distrusted the word to hold its own
in any kind of water. Micah played and sang
folks’ futures as relayed to him in visions.
Mine would be a lake. A mountain summit.
Footprints on the slope. His, a forged note.
A bottle of pills he’d force down a friend’s
wife’s throat. But Micah didn’t sing his own
future. Or see it. His world is smaller now,
in his cell. They say he never goes hungry.
Menu
