Conspicuous Christians

 

The conspicuous Christians

fill 4 booths and keep the waitress hopping.

12 adults

5 young children needing highchairs in the aisle

17 orders, all different

5 special requests

2 plates sent back

1 spilled coffee

separate checks. please.

After an hour, they leave

dishes, napkins, crayons, sticky syrup spots,

and

1 tract

with

2 crisp 1 dollar bills tucked neatly inside. 

_____

All Afternoon

All afternoon in my flower garden--
wolves, imps, children, heavy equipment.
I wore gloves.
I had a trowel and a shotgun. 
A bushel basket.
Tarot cards.

All afternoon, clouds traversed the sky,
reminding me of childhood days in Singapore.
Here are things which can change in an instant:
weather,
a steady heart beat,
the four walls around you.

All afternoon I'd had the urge
to shove my gloved hand down the throat of the earth
to draw out the devil's vocabulary.
Don't be stupid--
you know, the one that badgers speak,
the one that drowns anyone listening--
Drip.
Drip.
Damn.

All afternoon I slaved like a grave digger,
my straw hat gone, 
incubi dancing on the handle of my shovel.
I got a letter from the city, saying
cease and desist.
I got a letter from the Diocese,
saying I'd been excommunicated, along with the postman.
I got a letter from you
and it didn't say a god damned thing.

All afternoon I wondered why I opened it,
why I ever cared,
and whether I could use my 'do rag to flag the bombers
and sic them on your stupid paper house
with you in it.
I would like to stand on the rubble afterward, a martinet with round spectacles,
a cup of tea, 
and not a crumb of love left, 
but oh, one hell of a sense of righteous fury.
_______

The Swans

I made a sundial out of a wine glass and a Ouija board.
then waited for the light to rise.
It did, like a lion's head--
lazy,
arrogant,
full of a violent promise.

It was too bright, the smile of a lover who lies.
I knew then,
even without looking at the lake,
that the swans were back
and that I
had, somehow,
summoned them.

Swans, your natural collaborators--
one moment serene, and the next, stabbing at things,
as you do with your brushes and cotton balls
when you're angry.
You are the swan-mother,
and they follow you
like cirrus clouds behind a blue sky.

The glass falls from the table,
its bones exploding as if it had the bends.
Then, of course, the Ouija turns,
saying NO
and YES
at random, toying with me
the way the swans do with sunlight.

Finally,
there is the ring without a finger,
spinning gracefully on its golden edge,
making that silly, dull, cardboard-voiced sound
on the Ouija where it says, quite clearly,
GOODBYE.
______