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Picture
Photo by Dayne Topkin
6.2.20
(with a line from Mary Oliver)
Brian Dickson


I walk through this neighborhood
with things in my mind 
of little importance.
 
New dirt paths in the park,
with increased foot traffic, equals 
bad for grass.
 
You live here?
You live over there?
You are masked neighbors.
 
Hooray for microcollisions!
 
On the way to the train, a banner:
Black Lives Matter.
 
A sign: Blue Lives Matter.
 
I am the only one 
on the train. 
 
Where does a prayer go in here?
I want to speak it 
for five minutes,
for its spirit to fog
the windows.
 
Rubber bullets as prayers,
tear gas as prayers,
bonfires as prayers, 
plywood on stores as prayers,
curfew and safer at home 
as prayers.
 
Downtown, half-empty. There is 
little of importance on my mind 
except 
my dentist. 
 
Prayers ricochet off 
silent 16th Street, grinding 
a golden dome. 
 
Grinding home, let us 
be prayers
on trains till we stick.
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