Bumper stickers

[Published in the March issue of The Voice]

The morning is dreary 
and the day is not one of significance.
Fog hangs low in the valley;
I wonder if the world also feels time drag?

The slam of a car door returns me
from my daydreams, 
returns me to the cramped lot
off of Memorial Drive.

The bustle of the morning,
lazy though it is,
flows through me 
like smoke through leaves.

Streaks of metallic red pass me by
and the clutching hand of the exhaust smog
grabs at my throat.

All I glimpse is the bumper and the bright words
of ink on adhesive jumping for my attention,
displaying to the world some preaching of justice.

But are not those idyllic words,
stickered and sprawled,
the peeling decree
of half-forgotten causes,

not the same ones that fill the eyes
of the ignorant like a biting monoxide,
stinging their mind
and making them cry of malice?