Intervention

First, I prepare the needle: slim,
paper-sharp,
easy on the skin
from first prick to withdrawal.

Then I raise a fire under God:
smack, coke, or meth, it could be any of
these whitest of deities but I will not tell you
the secret name of my Lord.

When I pull the precious
up from the spoon and
hold it ready,
I do not consider

how Kandahar, Cali, or rural Missouri
may figure into my love.
It’s only later, next day, next week,
nodding before the news, that I have a dim inkling:

when I see the coffins coming home as a leader
wraps his arm around a man who kills for him
while farming the deaths of others and the oil
swelling up from the sand waiting for the line to fill;

when I see the boy saluting, his parents
fraught with pride as he leans into the march,
the countryside near his East Prairie home green with old habits,
the empty barns filling with new poisons;

when I hear the streets of a city ringing with Spanish laughter
even as the doors are barred against a bullet,
even as the dark cars zoom toward destinations
hidden in plain sight;

every turn of my every slow hour
seems to show me the pieces of some stellar judgment
that’s not clear enough yet
to be avoided.

This is the substance of choice for me:
not the needle or the spoon, not the joy
that bubbles above the fire below:
it’s that yearning for connection, no matter how hellish.

At night when the longing
catches me again, I tell myself
I’m the savior who will break the
circle. I tell myself:

give me a moment with the men
who make the world their spoon. I will embrace them
the way I embrace the high. World leaders
and shadow priests will come to me

and we’ll kick together. We’ll kick together.
That’s the hymn for this service, the one we cannot seem to sing.
You would think we’d be smart enough by now to see where we’re headed.
You would think that wherever we find ourselves, we could stop nodding.