Homan and Chicago Ave.

Cross the blood

that quilts your busted lip

with the tender tip

of   your tongue. That lip’s

blood is brackish and white

meat flares from the black

swell. You crossed your mama’s

mind so call her sometimes.

She dreams your dead daddy

still puts his hands on her

waist. She calls his name

then crosses herself, calls

the police then crosses

her fingers. Cross me

and get cut across your cheek,

its fat bag full of   bad words

and cheap liquor you hide

from your badass kids. Make

a wish for bad weather

when the hoodlums get to shooting

in a good summer’s heat.

Cross the territory between

two gangs and feel eyes stare

and cross in a blur of crosshairs.

When a shot man lands

in the garden of trash the block

flares up like an appetite

spurred on by the sight

of prey, by the slurred

prayer of a man so death-close

he sees buzzards burrow

their bladed beaks into

his entry wound. Tune

the trumpets. Make way through

dusk’s clutter. After death

the dead cross over into song,

their bones tuning-forked

into vibrancy. Cross your lips,

mutiny against all speech

when a corpse starts singing

despite its leaded larynx. Don’t

say miracle when butterflies

break from a death-gaped skull,

rout the sky, and scatter.