Donut Shop
       

The oversized pink donut fashioned on the roof
reminds me of the hole in the ozone dilating

above Antarctica, above the clueless penguins
wobbling over blue ice. Gets me thinking about

rings and holes in general, a life preserver tossed
from a yacht into the frothing waters where

someone's head once bobbed. About inner tubes
and nooses. About halos, glowing like white neon

over the heads of angels swarming around
a benevolent being. Benevolent and powerless

or else another day for the man consumed by waves
to sip a martini on deck. Or else merciful hands

to stitch closed the ozone's wound. Ergo,
God's a hole in the sky, big as the O in Oblivion.

To get from I don't believe to I believe, one must
jump through many hoops garlanded with flames.

Or one hoop, unlit and inches off the ground.
I don't know. My reasoning has more holes

than a colander as I wobble across the iceberg
of life's meaning, clueless as the next guy

who happens to be stepping out of the donut shop
carrying a dozen. Wish I had one. Glazed

or chocolate. One that dusts my lips and powders
the floor like snow shaken off a crow's wings.

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Copyright © 2017 David Hernandez All rights reserved
from The Book of Donuts
Terrapin Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission