They say a lot of things
-the saints among sinners,
masquerading as bystanders in
merely coincidental happenings.
They use big words
like skyscrapers
and jump-ropes,
trying to catch a cloud
in their cardboard fists.
Hope is an anchor;
infectious and false
because they do not
know what their tongues
spit out.
And it’s all too easy
to play games
with themselves.
Preying on feeble sponges
and bamboo legs,
perhaps one day
they’ll drink up life
in eternal form.
Here’s to knowing the truth:
they’ll rot in coffins,
beneath unmarked tombstones
without a single rose
to remember them by
[it was cancer].
