The Pope Arrives in Denver

The Pontiff, at 28,000 feet and falling,
one hour from Stapleton, recalls
his prayer for the children of Mexico City,
displeased with his poor phrasing
in Spanish--too much of the Catalan--
and above he watches the trace of comet
filament, striking the sky, an electric
confetti, becoming tears, these meteors,
and he looks upon the America beneath him,
the sundry violence upon the earth purpling
in the dark. On I-70, cars and buses are
strung, teenagers from Iowa or Detroit also
arriving in Denver, and on television
a white girl speaks of all this hope, how
it will stop the madness, the drugs,
the teen pregnancy. "I am from Cedar Rapids,"
she says. And the news producer decides
to quick edit all the teenagers she interviewed,
cueing up their hometowns like a line
across the continent: "I’m from Aurora,"
"I’m from Sedalia," "I’m from Cleveland,"
"I’m from Santa Barbara," "I’m from
Lincoln," "I’m from Abilene." The producer
headlines the segment, Kids Across America.
Instead, I am in Green River, Wyoming,
in a bad hotel, having just masturbated,
having just flushed my come down the toilet,
hating those moments afterward that confirm
only loneliness, and predictably I think
of my lover and these perils
of separation. After all, above me, above
these western overcast skies, the heavens
are sparkling, and southward, John Paul II
is kneeling and kissing the tarmac, and
surely love presently comes to someone
and his beloved, desecrating their bodies,
stilling them, as if there were no world, no
finer physics, no universe, save for what
seizes them, there, in that embrace, in that
nakedness, in that dark nowhere
everywhere about them. Where are
they from? I think they come from small places
on the atlas, small towns in Idaho, say
Eden, or say Kimberly, or someplace over there
on the map, over north, California. I
think they come from places near to me.

*home*