by trey dunham

Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?
Luke 17:17

This ain’t the A-Team
We don’t have no B.A. Baracus
Mohawk and gold chains
Flyin’ in the face
Against all odds
We ain’t got no plans, neither,
No Hannibal cigar-Chompin’
On-the-jazz schemes
No “Howlin’ Mad” Murdoch,
Running through personalities
Like a hot knife through butter
Crazy as a loon,
But puts a plane down
In a pinch
And Face, no Face here
Clean-cut for the ladies
A smile all he needs
To make them cry and long
For his sweet touch

No we sure ain’t no A-Team
We just sit here falling
Apart at the seams
Cracked and bleeding,
More like a side-show,
Circus material
We have no goals
No World Series win
To shoot for
No corporate
“I am makin’ it in this world”
Ladders to climb

No, this is not our world
We live on the border
Between places
We are not the jocks, the brains
The cheerleaders or presidents
Of the student body
Our bodies are leaving quietly
Sloughing off
Mortal skin easing behind
Us like the wake
Of a diseased ship

We are not the A-Team
We are imprisoned for a crime
We did commit
The crime of touch, breath, being
Too close
And we have not escaped
Into the wild, the under ground
We are still prisoners
Wandering with what we can carry
Burdened
By memories of a son, daughter
Friends left behind
The warm pull of a wife’s embrace

At night we sit around the fire
Holed in a culvert
For some peace
And Joe asks,
Like he does every night
What we’d do
If we ever got clean
Choose your catharsis
Ahead of time, knowing,
Believing it would come
For all the years on the run

I would head down
To the Citadelle Salon
Get me a manicure
A shave and a shampoo
Tommy always chimed in first
With the same dream
Being single
He had never known
The close touch of a woman

Max would find his wife at the sink
Sneak up behind her
As she peels potatoes
For dinner
Slip his face into the soft part
Down into the nape of her neck
Letting the aroma of her
Wrap arms around him

What would you do Joe?
Where would you go?
Joe pauses for effect
Same as every night
Eyes lost in the fire
Stick stirring
Among glowing coals
I would find a crowd,
Mingle in real good
Brush shoulders
Let the pull of their hair, clothes
Welcome me back

And they could do that
No one would stop them
Being clean and all

They look at me
Last, as always to go
And, as always
I say I do not know
But I am lying

I would come back here
To the culvert, the desert
To seal the deal
To say thank you

To not give in
To the time lost
The touches unfelt
Kisses missed
To feel the weight of all lost
Lifted in the utterance
Of those lightest
Of words