Under skyscrapers
And shopping cart tents
Late in the year
When the temperature drops
Down snowy streets
Among the broken glass
You can find Christ
Feeding the poor
With what little he has left

Frosted spoons of baby food
Pushed into mouths
Lips purple with addiction
God is here with His son
Where the wind cracks blue faces
And the makeup freezes

Carrying the loads of the poor
By parallel canals of ice
Down along one of those ripping streets
He's scraping together whatever he can
Snow ground under his fingernails
Cobbling together syllables
Over a frostbitten tongue
Trying to remember the prayers
Frankincense burns in garbage cans
Between feuding beggars
And vodka nips
There he is in his frigid rags
Jesus of cities
Dragging last year's bells around his feet
Go ahead, he says
Go before me

Whose turn is it
With the flashlight
Down in the hole tonight?