Latest Poem
- Melrose
I breeze through the friary door
with a light jacket and a prayerMelrose is a world
The streetsweeperkindly brushes aside
all antagonizing ghostsAn addict
bent to the bonereaches up to hand
the child her fallen teddy bearThe sidewalk vendor
fresh from elsewherecarefully 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 carpetslumped against the storefront windows
hugging his kneesthe 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 sheetTwo hearts in terror of tomorrow
and the long night betweenTwo souls smacking the marrow
they suck from the same bone*
Always remember this:
everyone’s fingernails growtheir 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.
Other recent poems