Soup Kitchen

Soup Kitchen

Clumsy as a fat thumb rubbing

the crumb up from the ivory

linen, what once, when thumbs

weren’t dumb, spoke its own snow,

a pope-worthy glow only if only

the chasuble hem didn’t grope

among the mud and bums, our

priests of the brown paper

bags and street strobes, the only

altar light they know home by,

see, and the tree it illuminates

squeaks in small winds and a time

or two this guy’s got his back

up against her trunk like he’s biding

more than time, because he’s still

sharp enough knowing the wait’s in

the waiting, he’s going to scratch

a while under this dead tree 

and sleep through that yesterday

when hard-hat men came to

see and leave their pink come on down

tape to blow in that same whisper

like it’s got secrets it has to wait

in line to speak.  It’s this tree he sees

home by.  Home of his bread and cream

of chicken soup.  Tunes in the other

room.  Lemon cake…that crumb

he thumbs, one humble crumb in

a spot all its warm own, and the old linen

a hint in its crumple

of the before Good Will

used to be’s.  That brief sun’s not

down yet boys he winks, all swill and dregs

before he has to shuffle out the door

to step on that pink tape that,

when he lifts his foot, blows

up the street, past the tree, it’s pieces,

tipped over like the only thing ever

on the board were these abandoned kings.