SMALL MERCY CRAVINGS IN THIS THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 2020

The year slow walked itself,
carrying Ragedy Anne dolls
& busted six-shooters, past
the planned nursery
graveyard, generally pleased
with its yearly output.
God inhaled deeply
then pushed his last breath
of the day, a breath suffused
with a tincture of musk
& fine Thailand opium,
into one tiny nostril of need
after the next, checking off
names while keeping abreast
of how each spinal cord
infused itself with
just the right amount of memory
for their aborted trip to record.

A nurse moved from basket to basket
whispering cures while the maddened buzz
of flies smacked themselves upon windows
looking for the first sign of an eyelid
threatening to close. But the eye,
as God surely knew, was there as sentry
not scout and the laboratory,
once the place of advances now recorded
only the retreat of desires.

Here, God is the trickster.
Death, arrives early
& often, blessing
with a first & last good kiss,
relief from walking a road
strewn with the tricks of April
& her fruitless folly.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020