Obscurantism

This is the dust which passes

from breath to breath,

from eye to eye. In New Orleans

a man brings his daughter

to the park. They buy balloons.

They feed the crusts

of a picnic to the ducks.

Later she will disappoint him,

marry, and have dirty children

who drive powerful cars

and park on the marigolds.

Sometimes even now he sits

in bars. He smiles at the stripper

who wears glasses. It makes her

human, somehow. She is blond

and thin, and has a child

in Chicago. She does not

miss him so much anymore,

she says.