J. P. Dancing Bear

My Yeriho

1.
A familiar silhouette draws me inward and across
the desert. Not a Pilgrimage. Nor Command.
A shadow of a temple on the dunes.

The fortifications and ramparts erected
with a long battle in mind. Each brick coerced
into a place; each subject ordered to stand—

indentured servitude and demand.
Like all cities are built. Cradled civilization.
City of my father—where stones are raised

to look like men. If there are tears in the desert—
the thirsty have drink. Each of us holds
a Dead Sea behind our eyes.

2.
People who look like me live behind the walls—
obeying the whipcrack, bending to hunger,
gambling their crumbs.

Locked doors, dead bolt comfort against
agents of the unknown. The curfew comes
earlier each night. The stone golems

patrolling. People who look like me
are saying yes and showing their documents
of citizenship. They don’t see

how many sons make a foundation
from their bodies, or how many others
betray their training and give bread
and board to strangers.

3.
The trumpets of my army unit.
Is this how jazz is born? With the dust
of a place like this coating your fingers.

Could suffering be held within a single note?
The first master musician would love
and release such music to the air.

I hated this city even before I pressed my ear
to the gate. I heard the false god praised.
Each sacrifice was called out

like a religion. I readied my horn and filled
my lungs with terrible, divine air,
I ballooned my cheeks to the mouthpiece
and pressed down on the piston.