What is the Sacred Word on the Street?

113 DOT DANNENBERG WHAT IS THE SACRED WORD ON THE STREET? I am reading Gaspar, and the dishwasher is whistling and singing. It is cleaning the blue and yellow plates I have used so many times without thanks. And right now, air flows from the metal vents at the ceiling, and I heat my body outside and inside to make up for it: drinking strange tea that tastes of chocolate, burrowing under a yellow butterfly quilt. What am I supposed to do, Frank? How can I be more of a poem than I already am, padding across the parking lot toward the trash compactor, wearing my husband’s silver basketball shorts? Or last night on the train, when the men I thought were thugs began to sing, the one with the sunglasses thwacking his hand against his chest, crooning, oh baby, you know you got my love? Sometimes God breathes down my neck. I know I should pray for the sick, but leaf blowers are groaning outside my window, and when the woman from the dog breeders calls to talk puppies and then tells me of her friend Karen and the brain tumor pushing her vision to darkness, I can only say, mmhm, the same pitch as the leaf blower. A low note of meditation, centering the world around a strange, great unity. Maybe God would prefer I light a candle to act as a memory trigger, guide my thoughts in the right direction. My only candle is from a fund-raiser. It smells not of death, but gardenias. Oh, but everything. Everything and nothing is holy. Winner of the 2010–11 AWP Intro Journals Project, selected by Cathryn Essinger ...