Murder at midnight.
Ruby light like a sheet
over the Oldsmobile’s
steel green skin.
Undercover crickets
shrill in a foggy field,
their screams a jagged static
against the black gloaming;
tinnitus in the night ear.
Haggard men,
hoarding hate like rare coins,
pause for gasoline—
greasy hands rub hollow eyes—
then churn up dust,
bald tires grind the earth
desperate to bury the past.
Tomorrow at the bank,
the agency, the classroom,
the factory, the church
and the precinct
they will call
Jesus a friend.
— © Rick Baldwin
