Mile 2
Broken bottles and
chicory flowers in the
harsh morning sunlight
An accidental
memorial bouquet for
this shattered roadside
An untended stretch
of lonely city sidewalk
I traverse with haste
Fading zoo murals
weather off the concrete of
a silent playground
Vacant windows of
a crumbling convenience store
reflect the traffic
And I run past them
stretching my stride to hurdle
the cracking curbs
The pastor recites the reading
“Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s
And unto God what is God’s”
But he mangles the meaning
He says that Jesus taught us to
be obedient to two masters
and to serve the heads of state
wherever they are leading
Serving under arms when called
to kill foreigners on foreign soil
who worship God a different way
A cross all Christians carry
But to speak up respectfully
when the church says God’s law is higher
like when babies are aborted
or homosexuals marry
Sean M. Gallagher 