I do not know if touching former wounds
and holding as we spoke
onto the hand of my brother,
heavy with past machine oil and all the cracks
of a life lived here and there and lately
on the streets of Hayward, was other than
it seemed; dizzy and pained
by beatings and self-recrimination,
by suicidal thoughts and street life
when you are not and have not been
fully abled; the words read here and there
about the face of Jesus in the face of
men, women, children everywhere…

But this is simply one of of all
the sisters, brothers floating in the world,
that I am graced with in this year and years to come,
a blessing in whatever may be the disguise
that awes me with the splendor of the freezing night,
the knowledge that despite the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune there is a core of us in every I,
and if your eyes are not too tightly shut to see,
there is no them, never is there anything
but the face and body of the god
that each one of us is,
worlds without end.