Time will bring relief, you all have lied –Edna St. Vincent Millay
On the freeway, a cop cruiser pulls beside me in the hissof water—In the backseat a young man; the slouch of head,shoulders the slump of heart on that long ride makes thisdark afternoon sadder than I can nearly bear.
And the Bible verses come as I knew they would,closing the distance between the uncountable starsand the bare walls of your cell—you tell me to readJob, The Psalms. And why does god not free the imprisoned?
Where is the passage of the father who called the Romansto take his son? Where is the absolution for that act?Where is the guard who has decided to release this sonto the world? Tonight, there is no calm to close the gap
between the constellations of my guilt and the open fieldsthe dog and I walk, under the steel sky that has beat us all day.

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