somewhere nobody bothers to ask

This Moment / Right Now

there’s a whispered prayer blowing
the crumbs of a season’s harvest
     off a girl’s plate

& a roar breaks from her insides,
the roar a lioness
     a beast that knows

& a man kneels somewhere
cupping his tears
     for the loneliness he feels

though he’s surrounded by the world,
& a finch in a tree singing
    for a lover as the buds on its branch

pop into leaves that will flourish
& welcome the green grasses,
     Right now a boy is wondering

if people can really dodge bullets
& is he one of them & somewhere nobody bothers
     to ask, they simply wait

Wind spins across the landscape
they say God is twirling his fingers—

The heartbroken hook new bodies,
night after night, drink after drink

& I dance—my feet mashing grapes
for wine & I sing mockingly—
what is life / what is life

[by Roberto Carlos Garcia; originally published in Poem-a-Day, February 20, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets]