| He fills the flower vases, trims the candle bases, takes small change
|
| from
|
| the poor box. |
| Tyler has the key. |
| He takes nail and hammer to tack up the
|
| banner of felt scraps glued together reading, «Jesus Lives In Me.»
|
| Alone in the night he mocks the words of the preacher: «God is feeling your
|
| every pain.»
|
| Repair the Christmas stable, restore the plaster angel. |
| Her lips begin
|
| to crumble and her robes begin to peel. |
| For Bible study in the church
|
| basement,
|
| hear children Gospel citing, Matthew 17:15. |
| Alone in the night he mocks the
|
| arms of the preacher raised to the ceiling, «Tell God your pain.»
|
| To him the world’s defiled. |
| In Lot he sees a likeness there; |
| he swears
|
| this
|
| Sodom will burn down. |
| Near Sacred Blood there’s a dance hall where
|
| Tyler Glen
|
| saw a black girl and a white boy kissing shamelessly. |
| Black hands on white
|
| shoulders, white hands on black shoulders, dancing, and you know
|
| what’s more.
|
| He’s God’s mad disciple, a righteous title, for the Word he heard he so misunderstood. |
| Though simple minded, a crippled man, to know this man
|
| is to fear this man, to shake when he comes. |
| Wasn’t it God that let Puritans
|
| in Salem do what they did to the unfaithful?
|
| Boys at the Jubilee slowly sink into brown bag whiskey drinking and
|
| reeling
|
| on their feet. |
| Girls at the Jubilee in low-cut dresses yield to the
|
| caresses
|
| and the man-handling. |
| Black hands on white shoulders, white hands on black
|
| shoulders, dancing, and you know what’s more.
|
| Through the tall blades of grass he heads for the Jubilee with a bucket in his right hand full of rags soaked in gasoline. |
| He lifts the shingles
|
| in the
|
| dark and slips the rags there underneath. |
| He strikes a matchstick on the box
|
| side and watches the rags ignite. |
| He climbs the bell tower of the
|
| Sacred
|
| Blood to watch the flames rising higher toward the trees. |
| Sirens
|
| wailing now
|
| toward the scene. |