J. Finds in His Pocket Neither Change nor Small Bills

Griffith Park, Los Angeles Every living heart . . . all over this broad land, will yet swell . . . , when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. —Abraham Lincoln Because the body now and its organs suggest nothing but those pathologies in which we’ve been instructed, Because the gutter’s black as new blood, a Petri dish of piss and teeth knocked loose at the root, Because our walking here’s scared up pigeons and the air’s thick with their disease, because, therefore, we’re holding Our breath in silent prayer, Good People of Los Angeles, for our immune systems, for hand sanitizer, For swift and decisive return of the sun’s irradiating grace, I can hardly say I even know you much Beyond the turnstile’s slick in the discount supermarket, the sidewalk’s chewing gum and tuberculosis. But I’ve been thinking of you, of your eyes darting behind