Slumped inside Hennepin County Emergency,

my eye wanders the wandering others,

each with no body to call a home at 3 AM—

Salvation shudders

blanketing hope to the music of CNN—

Sore-mouthed, wild eagle-eyed, prosthetic foot and shinplate airing itself;

a Black woman dripping red cornrows convenes

unconsciously with Jesus' mangled mullet—

The room, a marrow broth mid-December,

sweet and well beyond lust....

Or is this soulless cinderblock building

the warm, artful heart of God? And our spirits

in fact billowing a dozen white curtains?

This is the mind burning itself naked....

Meanwhile, the moon

recycles old love

through metallic ventricles;

casts shadows around

shrunken kidneys and livers....

An infant, bundled in the tattooed, AIDS-gaunt arms

of a Native woman, mewls

a dilapidated tune; reaches up

at a soft-snoring Somali girl’s sky blue head scarf—

Outside, a cloud lit

slowly wraps us in gauze.