loosely after Psalm 14

And everyone you have ever known undresses

back into who they thought they were

meant to be, saying, “There is no God.”

Like all fools, we are corrupt and have trouble

gathering in groups, supposedly working

on nothing together, which is not often

possible. The tether and the teeth of transition,

problems sorting themselves out before we aim

to move through the land of committing

our evil deeds. None of us others are mortgaged

when we are being good, or even practicing

at what is good in each evil deed, mostly

in ourselves. We are immeasurable, being

foolish as we search the daylight for

what God is on the page. On the Venice boardwalk

where the hawkers ask if we want our name

etched on a grain of rice, they nestle us into

the notion of love for the price of three t shirts.

We are surprised when the purchase bullets

through the sea air into the globe of us.

Tossed in our general direction without a third

thought of language as Harry Perry roller-skates

by with a suede backpack. We sop up Ray’s pizza

in our greasy hands, standing next to the Pacific

Ocean of our sanity, out of all who have turned

away from our heritage, none of us knows

how to eat bread anymore, or how to turn the page.

Men and women. Others and others. We shift

like dyed colors, bleeding into each other.