I walked outside my hotel,
there was a man photographing a nun wearing high heels
in the corner of the stucco building
across the street.
I drove to get coffee,
a tall marquee sign
in front of an abandoned boot store
called to me along the way,
I pulled over and stood beneath its towering message,
the kind that someone used to change daily.
It probably used to light up.
It displayed the broken message,
‘elf Care,’
the S lay on the ground beneath the sign,
in a pile of styrofoam cups
and pieces of wind-scattered plants.
Afterwards I went to visit a shrine to the Virgin Mary,
She wore a colorful robe,
I wore all black like the nun,
sat on a weathered wood pew
and prayed for the S that had fallen from the sign.