Sunday Best 

 

The snow squeaked 

the sharp air cut through the grey woolen scarf 

and bit his ruddy cherub cheeks 

roseying them up even more 

 

Bright blue eyes blistered beneath his favorite 

blue & white ski hat with a 

Saint Paul Winter Carnival patch 

pulled down snuggly covering his 

youthful mop of cowlicky blonde hair 

 

He shuffled as slowly as possible 

signaling his belligerence and broadcasting his opinion 

of being forced to Church 

instead of sledding with his friends on this sunny Sunday 

 

Trying to inspire his stubborn son 

the dad walked faster 

but son simply shuffled slower 

hands stuffed firmly in his coat pockets 

his huffs & puffs personified in wispy white clouds 

 

Seeing the curb, not seeing the ice 

feeling his forehead meet the cold concrete 

hearing the frantic, far-off shouts of observers 

as he clung dizzyingly to an accommodating sapling for support 

 

32 stitches later, he had won 

no church that Sunday 

the martyr’s favorite hat 

now blood-soaked. 

  

A Speck of Sand 

 

I am a single miniscule grain of 

sand 

dying of thirst in a desert of over 3 million other insignificant 

specks 

 

Entire beaches of silica swallowed  

whole by America’s Incarcerational monstrosity called 

Prison 

Reformatory 

Secure Detention Facility 

Penitentiary 

House of Corrections 

Land of the Lost 

 

The infinite granite walls a hard 

Shell 

clamping down, locking us in 

 

We see behind the concrete curtain 

watching in horror as 

the great and terrible 

administrative wizards wind & grind 

the inner machinations of the  

System 

spineless, heartless, cold-blooded as an  

Oyster 

 

My burden: to try to fix the broken by 

writing 

grievances, kites, letters, 

fiction, appeals, essays and  

Poems 

(like this one) 

 

I’m only one speck of sand 

creating a little friction 

a minor irritation to the Goliath leviathan 

But maybe someday I’ll be a  

Pearl.