aayoung
so he took her like an animal
but my father’s ghost wept
so she went to the men
like a good American
good people don’t want to believe
in visionaries good or bad
especially when you have red clay mud
starved stabbed scabbed over and over
on your grandmother’s dress from being raped just like her
from ft. Sumter to Wounded Knee
he’d never seen that color red come out of a living fertility statue
my veil is torn
the dog is dead
the natives have resumed their drumbeat
what we call eternity lasts
approximately 3 seconds
it is the state of a happy heart
at the moment of your death
as your brain powers down
the last thing it processes are images of
everything you ever loved
mercifully
that is our shared heaven
They
will sell you
candy cigarettes,
insulin,
Camel Wides,
chemotherapy,
God,
nicotine patches,
life insurance,
and a bronze casket
all
in one lifetime.
my parents were screaming
at each other
in Baptist curses
doors slamming
phones torn asunder
sounds of a home splitting apart at the roofbeams
my father throwing the floor model television out the front door
and one frightened sister
smuggling me out a bedroom window to another protective sister
that may not have all happened on the same night
it was so long ago &
this wasn’t constant
not your average weeknight at the Young’s house
but it’s always the first time
that matters most
if purgatory
is a soup kitchen line
in a catholic church
hell
is serving up grub
on the corner of 8th & vine
southern baptists
pulling up
in their tax exempt jesus wagon
to serve homeless people
hot chili in july
heaven, happens
in Cincinnati
when pigs fly
