Magic Soap

Magic Soap

There’s a madman

ranting

on my bottle

of soap

“All One!

All One!

All One!”

It’s magic soap

it cleans

your body

mind - spirit

and purifies

your soul

“All One! All One!

All One!”

but is a

teaspoonful

enough

to wash away

the scent of

ammonia

in a Nazi

bucket of piss?

or Zyklon-B?

or the ash

of loved ones

spewing from

Auschwitz

chimneys?

 “All One!

All One!

All One!”

say’s the blind

old man

bobbing in a pool

lather up

and forget

the tears

of children

left behind

a snapshot

of his son

held aloft

 sun drenched

sinewy

arm

the toddler

in his hand

like lady liberty

offering up

her torch

“All One!

All One!

All One!”

The Moral ABC

his magnum

opus

tinkered

with

added to

subtracted from

from 4am phone calls

dictated for hours

to secretaries

 only to be recanted

“All One!

All One!

All One!”

cement caked

hands

climbing the fence

of an Illinois asylum

 starting his enterprise

in the city of

“broad shoulders”

It’s not a half

bad legacy

a bottle of soap

wrapped in a

label of madness

it’s fair trade

the workers

and environment

are provided

for

The Moral

ABC is lucid

in places

between the lines

there is truth

miracles abound

like a million

tiny bubbles

rising up

in a bottle

of liquid soap

there’s miracles

all around

like Spanish moss

swaying in a warm

breeze

or a bird’s nest

in the crux

of a McDonald’s

arch

or a moments respite

a workers lunch

in a hospital

parking lot

miracles are everywhere

like a girl from

New York

and a boy

from Arizona

born 2,436.54 miles

away from each other

falling in love

in a Barnes & Noble

café

meeting

at just the right

moment

on a perfect afternoon

I met her at

27 years of age

I waited for her

that long

Those 27 years

Those 9,855 days

Those 236,520 hours

Those 14,191,200 minutes

Those 851,472,000 seconds

a millisecond before

and a millisecond after

and we might not have met

we made journeys

her and I

her from New York to Florida

me from Arizona to Illinois

to Florida

everything converged

that day

in that Barnes and Noble

café

and my life has

been made better

my heart’s capacity

grown larger

I’ve returned to the booth

where we met

realized a miracle

took place there

851,472,000 seconds

and it came

down to one

“All One!”

I love Dr. Bronner’s

soap

it’s minty

and refreshing

it makes me

feel clean

it helps me

to see that

although the

Nazi’s murdered

6 million Jews

6,150,000 Jews live in

the United States

with an additional 5,600,000

living in Israel

a state of their own

or that 58,209

Americans died

in Vietnam

but my father

survived

he came

home safe

and had one

child

who met one

girl in one

Barnes & Noble

at one precise

moment

and fell in love

and that is how

the world lives

it’s magic

a miracle

“All One!”