Take it in

accept acceptance

with all of your hesitations

(it’s not what you expected).

They have lives too

with eyes and ears

and covered hearts

now uncovered.

Where will this lead?

It’s not for me to say.

I’ve never been here before.

I unfold my fingers for exchanges.

I remember refusing to pray

     but for those on the outside.

What do we know of the forgotten

while walking hallowed halls?

Yet there is hope

in the words of a street-wise priest:

an aside to unemployment and youth drugs

not quite an aside.

I have a foot on each side of the line

Is this final fate?

I take steps in trust

the darkness within dissipates by degrees.