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Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Limits of Imagination the Down in the Dirt January - April 2024 issues collection book		get the 422 page January - April 2024 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Man Born of Woman

Ian Mullins

The cops said go down
and talk to him;

but you can hear him screaming
in the cell, a broken shadow
howling the monkey pain
of merely being human,
demanding nothing more from life’s fiasco
than a volley of silent bullets
fired from a barrel of glass,

so every black soul can nail
a little stillness
masquerading as peace.

But tonight he is the dark Christ,
the unholy ghost;
the slave-eater of sin, the punchbag
for every punch: tonight every face
kicked in every kitchen, every parking lot,
is his.

He is the smashed neon at three a.m
when the cop behind the security camera
closes his eyes not to sleep,
but to dream
there must be a better cell than this,
where we can rattle our own keys,
sing our own hymns

about the loser on the cross, the prophet
on the street. No need for another Christ junkie
in another city cell; every drop
of the poisoned red river
black in his burnt-out veins.

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