Kevin Simmonds

Night on the Charles Bridge

Lamps light

the dark glass of river

Saints lodged along the shoulders

like barnacles

Stones loosen underfoot

the rotted teeth abscessed too

into the frowns

of locals

The sky presses

its pierced black palm

but only beggars hide

their faces

The A train

swarms with Nikes

me headlong into the musk

of high school ballers

hands folded into jersey

then jerked like stingers

for their points

one’s uncertain

nail-bitten because he can’t hold

his one long note

another recognizes the stare

he’s been warned lingers

too long

but doesn’t say he sees me

he smells

he knows

at least that

Battle of Jericho

The gale force of his delivery

Each languid iamb tired

As any reverend doctor's

But to see the faces

Delightedly contort

As he does this thing

To ev-

ery

Line

Of

Verse

The confrontation

Of the staggered cadence

While they bray back

Feed me

Pathology binds

Master & slave

This sacrament

To swallow the nectar

We pollinated together

Yet we await the troublemaker

Someone who should wear a vest of kevlar

To breakfast

Be unburnable at the afternoon stake

Act without a tongue

At dinner

& in the few sleeping hours

Dream rivets into a wingspan

Articulating through what is never

A clear blue sky

But a path he’ll make

He is not the prophet