Mercy

Our porch rungs.

Chipped yellow paint: cold, hard egg yolks.

Some replaced with bare, blond wood.

Falling towards the street forever.

Stapled back into place.

Stasy and Camden are putting out beads.

Shiny plastic, yellow green and gold.

Camden can’t take his skateboard to the street.

He’ll go inside to scold Sapphire,

who yelps and yelps and never learns.

I did not plan for this today.

For Stasy to knock—she never does.

Except for once when I left the car lights on.

This time with a strand of rainbow beads. Gay pride,

she says, as if she had accidentally received my mail.

I did not plan for this, and I thank her, and I close the door and I breathe and-

I am struck by what love feels unbearable.