Roof of the World

--Major Jackson

I live on the roof of the world among the aerial

simulacra of Things, among the faded: old tennis shoes,

vanished baseballs, heartbreak gritted with dirt. My mind

alights like lightning in a cloud. I’m networked

beholding electric wires and church spires.

I lean forward and peer at the suffering below—

Sartre said: man is condemned to be free.

I believe in the dead who claim to believe in me—

says, too, the missing and forgotten. Day darkens

on. I hear our prayers rising. I sing to you, now.