Nothing But the Truth

Counting Steeples

Driving Woodward Avenue forward in time

up from the river through gauzy after images of game

in abundance, stands of beech and bog, the down

bound drays of hay and cider passing loads of Clippert

brick and limestone headed the other way, you can still

make out the water marks of Poles and Germans passing

through the gate at Ford’s rubbing shoulders with twelfth

generation Africans, a smattering of east side Italians

and west side Jews sizing up Irishman scattershot

both sides of the line. Wages gone to shoeing their broods

and bread and drink and banks and bookies and buying

a few moments of companionship after punching out

from second shift. Pin money when overtime allowed,

but the Almighty got His cut right off the top no matter what,

a little something to grease the skids and spur the spires  

cantoring up the avenue. Woodward Avenue Presbyterian,

St. John’s Episcopal, Little Rock Baptist, Metropolitan

A.M.E. Zion, First Congregational, Cathedral of

the Most Blessed Sacrament and Nothing But

the Truth Ministries slide by on my drive up from

the river, thinking back to when we counted churches

from the vantage of overpasses, a game we played

to pass the time passing through the city, steeples marking

the treacherous passage between your mother’s house and mine.