Your arms are so long;

I can’t see where your hands should be.

Do your fingers point away or

back toward me?

 

Are your muscles taut or loose?

Supple or soft, sufficient to hold,

implying an embrace? Or is there sinister intent

in your outstretched arms?

 

What is in your eyes?

Do they look aside, avoiding my own

while mine nervously look elsewhere, too,

unsure of beginnings? Of the road ahead?

 

Your pavement lies cracked, unsure,

            like the radiator of an old truck;

                        built for much more but now holds little.

But the truck looks good.

 

The skylines too often block

            the yearning view of skies made black.

                        As black meets blue comes green,

the color of your gold.

 

Starched Mayflower collars,

            unbending to wind or laughing or failure,

                        press the god-filled soil from your boots,

on the necks of your serfs.

 

The voices loud, the words are tall,

            writ large across your branded skies,

                        the songs are sung by those with guns for fists,

and stripes of nettles on corral courtiers.

 

My own soul, distanced, but tempered by time,

            finds grace such temperance allows, to swallow

                        the seeds of discontent in the hearty bread

baked in twin kilns of need and desire.

 

So, stretch out your long arms.

Grab hold of one made larger, broader,

Arms made to embrace or crush are at least

around my shoulder.