Psalm for the Slightly Tilted

This is not

a good year.

But it has

witnesses.

They came with

the wrong shoes

for revolution.

Still,

they showed up,

like flagpoles outside the courthouse

after a nor’easter.

Comfort, Lord,

their bodies—

each a question mark

doing time

as a coatrack

hung with borrowed jackets.

When you see them protest the powerful,

since who else

protests the powerful—

Your legion

of bent spoons.

They are the only

ones who showed up—

with their orthopedic flair.

I saw my people lean—

not towards hope, but toward each other.

They chant off-rhythm

and mean it.

These are my kind of people:

no tears—just

steam from a kettle

that never quite boils.

In times like these don’t forget us:

the lopsided

leaning on one another,

like sodden paperbacks left out on the stoop—

nobody opens

these books.

But they still insist

on carrying the plot.

Comfort us standing up—

half scarecrow

half saxophone

with a squawk.

Comfort us sitting—

in that collapse called calm.

In the year they come for us

watch my people

make protest signs

out of old pizza boxes.

Children write their names with fingers

wet with saliva.

Watch—

there are no boring people

which is unfortunate.

You’d think statistically

we’d get at least a few—

one speed-souls

with just meh stuff to do.

But none of them are dull.

Each—

a suitcase held together

by duct tape.

These are your coffee-stained saints

who rise not with trumpets

but with Advil.

They stand

and wait

creased like maps

of a country

that doesn’t exist anymore.

--Ilya Kaminsky