Jones' Nose

Their unspoken opinions

are like a pot of unknowable, unnamed meats

including skunk parts

one morsel of filet mignon

Family or workplace

longer the hours, years of the living

opinions accumulate

perception strained through mortality

This stew of ethics

holds together, blows apart

trees, planets, atoms, galaxies

on or about year 2000

One must not

express the certainty

that the child's coma-induced vision of a dead grandparent

did not actually happen in heaven

One must feign

respect for all beliefs however abjectly

death denying

because they are harmless as

ozone

zebra

xylophone

zygote

A

beautiful day follows

on Jones' Nose

ripe blueberries, black cherries