sweetness

It isn’t only the labor of the honeybee or

the sacrifice of the sugarcane,

this sweetness 

I seek, it is my work

through this world and the words

I founder in, the heft of these wishes,

the hunger of a love-starved heart

bidden to the hopeless and

the gone, clinging to the wheel

as it turns and turns though the sweet

comes as strong black coffee and 

the burn of the cheap brown cigar,

smoke rising in plumes and coils,

the hard head of a problem dog or

the ghostly tread of the rooftop cat

deigning briefly to sleep beside me,

though the night is too warm and 

I sweat fresh constellations at all hours,

this sweet like the cactus flower awaiting 

the tiny bat to pollinate, the wild

laughter of the children when loosed 

upon a world that is more than ready,

all concrete curbs and the glint

broken bottles offer up, blood hungry

geometries upon black asphalt.

It is your healing hands in their ministry,

honey sweetness as they gathered my love.