Earnest Intent

It’s MLK day and I’m giving myself completely

to volunteer with college kids and build sandwiches

because we can’t collectively afford housing for the needy.

But at least we can feed our communities as the snow plows in.

I’m surrounded by a solidarity of kindness for kindness sake.

No agenda attached,

and it is as pure a feeling as the human heart can muster

under any circumstance.

Shifting tables outdoors. Sorting clothes erratically for grannies and meemaws

and the interested passerby in need of thick socks to withstand the aching freeze.

So many shoes will be dumped off at a Goodwill or God only knows.

For now, we display this plenty in lieu of potlatch, in hopes of a harmony

that arises when earnest intent meets random chance.

We make the most of every inch of space available,

clearing and cleaning what we can,

riding shotgun towards the next fridge, depositing the millionth sandwich.

The sun pours over us for a brief pause and I soak it in with the luster of a house cat.

I would purr if I only knew how. And my stoic face is only just beginning to learn the posture

of something sincere like a smile. But if my smile couldn’t be seen,

surely it must have been felt.

There are people under this roof who I would build every brick of a house for

if I had the opportunity, the money, the luxury.

A home a luxury

in this land of plenty.

If only we could build homes from sandwiches,

sovereignty out of old sundresses,

we’d have solved the problem on MLK day.