Marci Payne

This morning’s coffee
tastes like resignation,
however,
I’m in the mood for redemption.
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
who knew
the 6th mass extinction
on the planet
would be set into motion
not by a furious comet
instead thrown into chaos
by an insidious cloud
of misinformation
(que piano music)
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