Amarillo Bay — Poetry

                        — Easter, 1980

Most everyone’s gone for the holiday
or gone to church or shut away at home
the streets have surrendered to belfry chimes
to flocks of pigeons, swirls of last night’s trash
for lunch, we lick ice cream and save our cash
for dinner: steaming pizzas spiced with thyme
strange goat cheese, drizzles of oil from Rome
we eat, drink wine, and ask for more ashtrays

Years pass: I lose the urge to smoke but not
the flat image of that fat pizza man
his two fat sons and daughter, his thin wife
that day, we feasted: gluttons at the trough
some, instead, labored: blessing us with hands
with hopes they might attain eternal life