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The end of the line
is a woman in her sixties
hunched over her plastic
daisy-plugged basket
towing a cart weighed down
with an eight-foot tangerine
cross. Her silver helmet
dips lower on the right and she smiles
with each slow revolution
of her legs. The others stop
at every block, lingering
while the distance diminishes.
They brood over the cross, tethered
to the cart with rain-grayed ropes
like thin arrows pointing
to the sign: "Jesus Rocks."
No exclamation point, no need
to push the message with all caps.
And while they balance
on the sidewalk straddling brilliant
Schwinns, they can't resist checking
to see if anyone is following,
if anyone knows enough to marvel
at the fluidity of the last woman's crusade,
how she slugs along without pause
in incremental moves, her grin
permanent, a dark slash
swallowing blocks and blocks
of possible heaven, her feet never once
touching the ground.
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