statistics about children affected
by warms in their stomachs
make it quite hard for me
to finish dinner while listening to the news
so i like to keep the tv off

the salivating homeless
with answering machine requests
for cough drops make it unpleasant for me
to walk into 711 at 4am on a friday to get juice
for the woman and vodka waiting at home

the sirens of lawless ambulances
flying, zigzagging down my street
make it dangerous for me to ride my bike
down the middle of the road
as i like to do when i'm tired and overstuffed

in fact, my body and mind, healthy and young,
is altogether inconvenienced by the intersections
with the lives of those which have slipped
from the path of normalcy which stretches out
beyond the horizon, the curves of which
god joyfully traces with his eyes