Time Kleptomania by Clara V. Bailey

The quiet care home set the summer straight

A cough in the stale air, and one more day of ventilated pain

Children march ahead of their footsteps

Into some land of lust and falling asleep in front of bad TV

The past as real as those days we hurtled ourselves into the river

Like the cold could freeze us into the moment

Into reality

Where all around, the perfumed summer breeze

Encased us and saved us from our late forties

Behind the pews, small eyes peaked like sunlight

Through leaves

Looking for God in the gray faces of the fathers and mothers

Who birthed generation and generation of despondency

Manicured in saviors, Caucasian and holy

Blown now by the breath of the boy who holds a naked white dandelion

And watches life whisk away