FLIES

THE DAY THE YOUNG BLACK WOMAN MEETS ME
ON THE STREET AFTER LOSING HER BED AT THE MISSION
WHEN SHE MISSED EVENING CHAPEL AND HER BUS
OUT OF TOWN, SHE TELLS ME ON THE SIDEWALK
HOW COLD IT WAS LAST NIGHT IN MILLER PARK
NEAR THE SCHOOL WHERE MY DAUGHTER TEACHES--
I'VE JUST RETURNED JAMES WRIGHT'S POEMS
TO THE LIBRARY--AND WALK HER INTO TACO TIME
BEFORE GOING INTO THE YMCA

Coming out of the Y after swimming I say,
Merry Christmas, God Bless, Turn Off Fox News.
Mr. Jefferson, reading headlines in the coin box, says, Fox Noise.
I ask him about Gil. Old friends. We have Gil in common.
They worked together when they could only work for others.
Alan Simpson, Senator from Wyoming tells us,
Sober up or sleep in the streets because
things are only going to get worse.
In a poem called War, the Canadian poet Patrick Lane
writes from the silence, listening, as the man catches flies
as they rise backward then holding the fist to my ear
so I can hear its buzzing. Mr. Jefferson tells me
he won't attend Martin Luther King services
because they're all held in churches that made slaves of his people.
World go about your business.
George W. Bush appears on talk shows telling Oprah
he's just another old man picking up dog shit in sandwich bags.

Jim Bodeen
4 December 2010