Steps
The only person at the twelve-step
meeting, Christ hangs on his cross
in the church basement’s smell of cafeteria
trays and play dough, imagining a woman
in a tight cable-knit holds her nipple, just
out of reach of his mouth, imagines a rigging
holding him there, and the feel of rope in his hands
has disappeared and he steps down
to an alley’s shot brick floor
and night. And still, no one knows.
And sees men as trees, walking.
Body-bruised and half-naked, asked
by a passerby to help reach a cufflink lost
far under a car, goes off whispering
to the walls, Disappointment is a lover’s word.