clergy

the soften & wilting pages becoming skin
this man shouts a bible toward the morning foot traffic 
each day as i walk from penn station all the way up
6th avenue. sometimes he raises one finger
to point as if conducting an orchestra 
of un-manned violins. i feel me strings--
the ones that go all the way down my throat
& end between my ribs. of course, i never touched it
but i want to know what his bible feels like
if he reads from it every single day with more 
reliability than subway train times or electricity.
that summer there were power outages & we stood
in the dark streets like ghosts & though i wasn't
on 6th i know the man was reading from 
this bible. if not the texture of skin 
then maybe the texture of a newspaper 
left out on a street corner week after week.
the smell of newsprint crinkles with rain.
i miss walking that street & miss the man
spitting the bible towards me-- how i could look up
to him & make eye-contact with words.
how i want poetry to do that to me--
to move me to stand with an umbrella in the rain
balanced on my shoulder so as to protect 
the pages. the words emptying me of a form.
his black suite. his black shiny shoes.
his fingernails like little peach moons.
the first time i thought he was calling us
sinners & maybe that's because despite it all
i haven't unwoven the knots of god in me.
maybe he was trying to give it to us
or maybe he did believe us all to be evil.
maybe he was exorcising this old city
of all these bones. my only impulse was
to tell him to stop & breathe. he read so fast--
a kind of spilling. a block or two away 
after i passed him i would pass radio city music hall
& tourists pointing at the red bright sign.
i would pass a vegan ice cream shop &
a store full of i heart new york shirts & magnets.
i don't know if he's still there but i hope
he is. i hope his bible is made of feathers.
i hope the rain stops & he eats something
warm & crisp. i want to stop him to tell him
i'm not a bad person--that i walk fast because
i have to-- because there is a hurry 
i am part of but no of course i don't. he reads.