The Unease

by Terence Winch

The trees bark your name.  The wind
whistles your theme song.  On Facebook
dogs and babies sing out such praise of you.
Aliens ask for you every year on your anniversary
but still the ghostly faces projected on dark
brick walls of the city stay silent.  No one breaks
the required fast.  There will be no red meat
for forty days, some say forty years.  The sands
of the desert turn red.  Security is tightened.

The garments in the windows on the avenue
are threadbare, the men’s pants, the ladies tops
all now irredeemable, the fashion drained right
out of them.  A martyr is laughing into the camera,
joined almost instantly by a thousand more,
their teeth clearly visible in the sunlight.
A salesman sells raw moonlight to a pit bull.

The gospel says the unknown will deliver
the pastries, the sexy bodies, the horn sections
to any destination, day or night.  The strangers
have their hands up.  They surrender.  Their tale
of loss cannot be told and will not be heard.

People who love have 12 years to make their case.
After that, it all turns to sweat and kinky flourishes.
The system does not look back.  Destiny cannot
be lured into the final episode where all is explained.
It’s in the wreckage where they always find the flight plan