Calais, France

My mouth is narrow.

I cannot open it wide enough

to feast on all that a day offers.

Example: today

the sky is a sinkhole

writing in watercolor

which the crows are circling

(those slicked, stern critics)

there are eleven new roses

swathed around sticks

like tufts of pink cotton

almost too sweet

and a man stops

to tug a bit

on his daughters jacket

and answer why

for the seventh time 

he nearly misses

the shuffling bus

on which everyone notices

each other

and pretends not to

on which two women 

will tell him, what a sweet

child, and he will glance

at another man’s newspaper

surreptitiously.

Onion skins waft

their way into everything

a promise of tomorrow’s 

bounty, and the handprints

climbing up the walls

like a prayer.

And one mother holds

a sick child close 

to her breast, incarnate

Madonna of the one

resting in the corner.

Anything 

could be

ahead –

tiny fingers 

iridescent with suds

wild mornings

that suddenly grow still

the steel blade of hope

knifing its way through

a kind of despair

it is too much

to chew;

I am gulping 

the world down whole

I am managing

only the crumbs 

the leftover miracles

piled into baskets 

(nothing is wasted

after all, keep the

big meals for the ones

with larger stomachs)

I am watching the world 

break open and multiply 

before my very eyes.