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Here you learn all patience, love, and contempt of the world. Bryant said Santa comes to houses in Hawai`i through the toilet vents. The meditation box requires pipes; anger is a vortex the equator reverses. Men live in boxes under bridges. The bridge is a structure that connects, is also roof to rooms marked by tents or cardboard. A homeless man under the El noted my Cards cap. El is not God, but offers some measure of mercy. Humans refer to them as the “plague,” but not the steel and stone. Privatize his box, charge him rent, take his papers and his cigarettes. It's illegal to feed him, so slip a burger under his blanket. I take suffering to be counter-miracle, subtraction. Empathy crosses the police tape; the fines add up. Put Jesus in handcuffs, else he might love you.

--19 April 2015