Jeneva Stone

Anti-abortion rally ends at Union Station metro, January 2006

—I, too, dislike it—:M. Moore

In which I am caught exiting
among thousands
entering the maw of this
realizing I cannot admire what I do not understand

like the cross on which Jesus weeps
carried like a
mallet by a composed man
drifting through clerical collars of young priests beside the gladsome

grandmas with white coifs alongside
federal workers
and have I become so un-
intelligible as to become just derivative within

the cool yet prowling murmur of
crowds orderly
only because justice has
been adequately questioned for the day and exists for now in

its unblemished state: father and
son just about 
my daughter’s age ask me for
directions: two legacies of what is born and dies scrabbling like

the rest of us in the great womb
that gestates us
citizens side by side with
children of the apocalypse, like you o lord, crouching fetal

in a stroller: hands grasp, eyes di-
late, hair rises
softly in the steady breeze
of underground tunnels below or indeed above insolence

or triviality and I
recall only
their backs: Jesus Saves sticker
on his backpack receding, the possibly imaginary

man and his son so genuine
while the toad of
the Court or perhaps of Christ
refuses to croak, once again complacent and after all this

flailing of banners, picket signs
shall we emerge
with perfect contempt intact
blinking into the same sun at our respective destinations.