In the Land of Constant Sweeping

No broom idles

in the land of stubborn empires

No shop entrance keeps dusty

at sweltering midday

There’s not a known treachery

that hasn’t been erased

There are no taboos

that haven’t been shunted onto a neighbor’s path

Oh bent women

& crushed by straw gossip

Oh men practiced in the shame of streetcorner dereliction

Oh lovers waltzing invented turns

alone

& on the steps of the garish basilica

are you there in the forlorn dusk

Are you there under the canopy of brutal disregard

Witness the foundlings

& those assigned palm fronds in the municipal garden

Witness the gaunt & the dispossessed

those shod in mismatched shoes

though propped by a pummeling desire to get clean

Witness those new to fastidiousness

& those enveloped in its drunken orbit

Are you there as the pistils & stamens

loosen from the cana lilies

& tumble onto the hungry grounds

Are you there as the roof tiles implode

& the final exaltation of lust dissolves

What’s left in the land of constant sweeping

that doesn’t drift or fall or settle

from an ever-profound sky

What’s left that cannot be swept into a measured pile

& left for others to sweep anew