Pharmacy

It seems like everyone is opting to believe in the intangible again.

          The doctors wear their lab coats to the church.

Content to drive perfect automobiles.

          Unable to deliver confirmation of the edges

squirrels trace, or why the lamp post falls on grandmother's

          head, science is a pervert these days.

I used to play music out my window when I was content

          that history was an undrawn curtain

& that everyone would want to know what I was up to.

          Mystery used to come upon the saints & take

them out to diner when it seemed like all was lost.

          The mind in air becomes occupied with candles,

the mouths of graves grow teeth, become fertile

          property for painters of heavens, calligraphers

dismantle the option language provides to measure

          the words for heart, Corozon, Cuore, the virgin

center of a knot of longing.  Science consumes desire

          like a tiger eats a villager.  The saint becomes protection

from the wrath of gods flooding.  The year the river flooded

          downtown the warehouses turned store front

chapels were baptized, mold encrusted the sign

          of the holy finger.  But science, the code, embedded

in the bacterial sludge, the bilge canker's Damocles,

          science is the beheaded god of night lights &

roller coasters, she Bears the burden of the sword wonder.

          Watching those business men, heavy investors

in redemption, pray, over the phone from the wheel of the

          gas guzzler, to be unburdened from the coat of tears.

I hear the ghost of science plead to be resurrected, from the stain

          of oil on the city street.  From the Electric fuzz of my

CD player's dying battery, I hear the burden of tears call out

          & shame the conical pleasures of the magical heart.