Pentecost

Bossa nova’s on Muzak when grimy
last-of-winter sunlight glances through
a window, making yellow-gray pools
on your slick tabletop. And you tearing apart
tough bread some minority kneaded at midnight
picturing a milder climate while their sweat
dribbled maybe into the flour. And the woman
humming, only for you, but in Spanish.

You at the bus stop, screwing your eyelids shut
so fat veins spread inside them, and a southerly
Pentecost wind moving by you. Its broad palms
patting your cold-creamed face, and you peeling
open your coat collar, and letting it pull at
you until you are less glutinous, obstinate by then.

If even illegals be corralled by grace in the end
the migrants picking peaches would rest a little on
a Sabbath, set down their split-knuckle hands like
a ground-down tool. So the fire of Spirit eat them. Amen.