Our Lady of Roosevelt Avenue by Heather Lee Rogers
Night swimming through the sweaty haze of an ice cream tangle your body, mine dancing their exchange in summer’s darkness. I enter night’s hot mouth still feeling the pressure of your hands, your scents my unabashed secret joining echoes of the thousand midnight secrets shirtless restless masses keep while praying to their fan blades for salvation as subway dins cut descants through bar noise and old radios, cooked sidewalk garbage bucks and grinds with roasting chicken gets tapped out by watermelon, sleepless souls in bed change soaking pillows for the cool sweet mercy of a Virgin …sure, she’ll rise up pale and holy from this dirty street but not tonight oh please God, not tonight.