Faith Salons

In the faith salons they do your nails for fifteen dimes a

bottle, where

someone in the darkness waits for your arrival. In the Faith

Salons the

deals are struck, making heroes out of dust and clay. The man

gives you

sixty seconds on the dollar, and walks away. In the middle of

your book

of ages you write your dreams down to the letter. Tired of

second

chances and singles dances. Her robes were purple velvet

feeling like

the king of Cairo. Prisoners to fools and slaves to paper gods.

In the

faith salons....The books of massacres and natural disasters,

beguiled by

belligerence learned from the dancing masters. The child on the

train

was a mimic mime of babble. The mother knitted sweaters that

the child

would unravel. In the faith salons....They have medicines for

madness,

madness caused by drugs, something for your headache and a spray

to kill

the bugs. You walk the catwalk of polyphony, And your charades

of

destiny. To whose myth of creation will you finally fall upon

your knees

and cry for forgiveness denied. In the faith salons....She'd

appear like

a belligerrent ghost in my dreams, in my living room, all torn

apart and

blue, where the ribbons flew and the sky tore like a sheet of

rain, of

dust. Peace is a distant mirage where the only truth is the

path and

chance the only landmark in the desert. Sleeping in doorways.

Underneath the falling frescoes, She'd say, It's your pain. In

the faith

salons....