But is it a God or a Dog? Should I have searched for Yahweh or Scout? I dismissed it and stared into black matted hair Frenzied on the back of his skull, scared witless As arms like tubes that bubbled with passionate fires reached heavenward Mumbling all the same towards salty chicken halyards and gooed macaroni deities While the cars behind us in the Drive-Thru honked and rustled their wheezing engines to grind With grittier oils and colder sands as the 32 degree mark treaded lower and lower towards earth. And he, My friend, Seeking God on top a Bojangles, Followed the path of the temperature And fell like an imbibed spider to the concrete by the dumpster, Missing the grime barely by measurements of breaths or germs or spiders Or blood splatter exiting the mouth as soon as he lands and the elderly indoors Rush out with plump Sunday chickens for boys and breadcrumbs of worry on their lips, Cheeks not growing red from care but from stains of powdered allspice and cayenne pepper. Sunday clothes and homeless cloth Mutter and bumble around the heaving body Of my friend who is alive and insane and losing control Of his mind while a single quantum floats and pokes the skin Below his bottom lip as a gristle man creaks from inside and coughs Into my shoulder blade and makes a haggard joke in a haggard language Mentioning he should get a 401K for this and that the seasoning wasn’t spicy enough And that Planck and Luther and Math would giggle if they saw him hocking loogies Over the body of a boy bothered by this microscopic speck of salt driven into him by a fun Time at Bojangles on his off day as hints of Cajun seasoning trickle onto my friend’s forehead.
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