St. Francis

In the morning
many feathers, clotted
together with blood,
sitting on a sidewalk;

mixture of brown-black
and dirty white,
dry enough;
clasping each other
for now until rain
separates them
and they blow off and away.

Earth moves on;
a church across
Main Street, gray station
in eastward light;
local drunk lonely on
steep granite stairs that lead
to locked doors.

A single feather
broken free —
drifts up, touches
a single door.

It is Wednesday,
a day like any other;
doors that do not open,
doors that promise salvation
to those who enter,
doors shut tight against
blood, feathers,
drunks, me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T