Belladonna

You may come to a place where nothing grows
Where all you can see for miles is desert terrain
Cracked edges of earth, splitting at its own themes
The dust is palpable, in your throat and in your eyes
Black skies and bruised clouds stretch on endlessly 
But in the corner there is a yellow cactus flower
Electric, alive, alone

It sways in the windless moment
Grows despite constant carnage

 Like sweet wine born from the bitterest grapes
its bouquet opens in the broken glass,
flavor ripening with every sip
It grows like those at the bottom of the ocean
without light, without oxygen, without sound
it glows

Like nightshades, solanaceae, the flowering plants
that bloom under the moon: potatoes, paprika, peppers
and pomodori 
The only edibles from a list of poison
filled with alkaloids and lectins and night air
They tell me not to eat them
quod me nutrit, me destruit 

God in Parentheses

Every morning I pass the bank display window on 17th street and
staring at my own wind-blown reflection I always think I see someone staring back
and (every time) I realize it’s just a tall, wooden lighthouse painted red and white,
used for marketing or decoration or who knows what.
Maybe that is what we are to one another:
decorative wooden lighthouses in display windows, guiding one another
through black waters, and misty mornings, and sidewalks filled with strangers moving in differing directions and discordant speeds.
Further down the man selling falafel and fried eggs from his food truck hands
people their change through the steel window and I stare at the Tropicana orange juice bottles on shaved ice pebbles.
(I don’t know why this matters
But somehow it does)
They smile as they walk away, clutching breakfast sandwiches in brown paper bags
Inside they are wrapped in foil
The way my dad used to do for my brother on Sunday mornings
He left the sandwich in the warm toaster oven
To stay heated until my brother woke up
(I don’t why this matters
But somehow it does)