Padam, Padam

Built on flint, brick, every alleyway

a work of mercy, forgiveness, a corridor

of fear in the dark, with that lingering

taste of bacalao-and-olive breeze,

touching what doesn’t live in your heart

like perfume from passerby, while we

listen for just our own steps at night,

as Barcelona without a Virgin under

a canopy, but there is no Barcelona

without our Virgin, especially on Good

Friday of dark candles; alley becomes

Geographia Artificio, praising God

of the globe, wondering how bacalao

will save us tonight, as we enter the bar,

and she says, Chi-caw-go, Chi-caw-go,

like a gameshow, an algorithm blessed

with redemption, her bar straws strewn,

calculating how she might make them rise,

as Greg drinks his Padam, Padam under

a tiny umbrella of mercy, stating that society

drinks itself toward belief prius ex Globo

– and I spin my globe touching the stops

and starts, finding in fault my flint, striking

sparks like a new beginning, brick by brick.

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Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, The Broadkill Review, and Loch Raven Review. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). Wiezorek posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.