chariots from heaven


    mother of two
    stands on Church St.
    outside the Open Hand food bank
    for those with AIDS
    blond hair, unwashed
    skeleton bare
    tho camouflaged
    under 20 year-old
    corduroys and recycled plaid
    brother holding her arm
    they enter the warehouse
    crates and boxes stacked high
    gotta check
    in
    at the front desk
    where a helpful but mechanical black woman
    examines her ID card
    and hands her
    the "grocery list" for the
    week

    she sits on a vinyl green
    chair
    and waits
    in the post-triage room
    nutrition posters curling off the walls
    while volunteers behind a counter
    call out numbers, accept sheets, and wheel carts
    into the backroom to throw goods
    in:
    fresh, canned, and packaged
    maybe it's past 3pm
    the "fresh greens" are
    out
    whatever those were
    poor logistics
    she can have
    yams
    instead, but she clutches her brother's arm
    stares like a POW and says
    "No"
    meaning, "I won't be treated
    like a second-class citizen even
    if I'm living off your mothefuckin tax-
    covered handouts
    you cheated on those forms
    anyway cause you didn't
    want to feed people
    like me"

    the volunteer
    smiles accommodatingly, after
    all s/he isn't the one
    dying
    goods on the counter
    for her brother to put in brown
    bags
    she's too weak
    to do anything but initial the weekly lease
    how many more weeks can it go on like this
    resisting katabasis
    before one
    less
    burden to the food bank and the volunteers  her
    children her brother her mother will
    even outlive her
    stray dog
    that she took in 4 years
    ago and all else
    and with this thought she
    rises
    gathering strength
    as if before the first artillery of the day
    as the nerves in her solar plexus
    are deteriorating and her
    toes
    ache from the cold.

    outside, the sky is
    cold, too
    but a
    blue, color of
    her
    chariots from heaven.



    --jennifer crystal chien