LIGHT POLE
by Spoon Jackson

I.
What is this place
I am in?
One foot in darkness
One foot in light?

What is this place?
Where dark buzzards circle
morning, noon and night?

What is this place
I am in?
Where Amtrak trains whistle
by on unseen tracks
on the other side of the mountains?

II.
I sit at the base of the light pole
All around me there are people
on the basketball court
Three Mexican-Americans are doing burpies
listening to soft rock music on the radio.

Across the basketball court
multi-colored Christians come together
to pray to their God.

While African-Americans slap
dominoes on the concrete tables
behind me.

I sit at the light pole
reading Shakespeare.