Joey Cloudy online

CIRCLING THE STREET SIGN TO MECCA

-for Robert Trammel

I am with the girl in Black.  

straight calamitous hair just touches 

the Chinese collar of her priest 

frock minus the white, 

worn unbuttoned like a holy trench coat

as it flaps in the wind over carboned steel toed 

combat boots. We march two ebony garbed travelers

on crackled sidewalks, the San Andréa’s fault line 

that runs through the middle of East 

Dallas, through Lakewood, 

Lower Greenville all the way 

through Deep Ellum and down, 

down, under Downtown into the muddy Trinity 

River.  Our eyes are always laughing,

 leading us here between the spinning spokes, 

to the soul hub of the City. We are looking 

at the 10 foot tall punk rock Sunflower 

with a yellow Mohawk. We are circling 

a street sign named Mecca, 

two poets on a Hajj. We walk 

past the most holy yard on the block.  

We stop to see all that was here before us.  

Speaking in the hushed tones reserved 

for the hallowed ground between fear 

and desire.  Standing in the empty silence

contemplating his Words now floating 

on a black glass wall on the City Place

bus stop.

And, I still do not know 

why we were afraid to

knock on that door.