When Streets are Paved With Gold

Turn a page from the Dead
                                    Sea divide to memorize
revised prayers—deliver
                                    unseen deities. Learn to
say faith in sundry
                                    idioms. Or, lift your head
to map the confederacy
                                    of lies—weight shifting on
bended knee pressed against
                                    fallow soil. Removed
from points of origin—gritty
                                    hands clamor for remedy.
Dirt lodged under nails:
                                    conspiracy of labor & migrant
colonies; camphor winds &
                                    lonesome concessions.
Martyrdom hemorrhages
                                    like a failed birth:
we are made to succumb
                                    through the centuries.
Same old story, like
                                    unraveling spools
of roses—a maze. So what
                                    is the meaning of this,
a proxy to youth? Where
                                    there can be no mercy, no
grace? Amen. Amen.

Read more from Issue No. 15 or share on Twitter.