LOSING MY RELIGION
Torn mad between
Disbelief and
A final cloud-soft
Happiness
A Christian hoax
That hides the knife
Stabbing me everyday
Headlines broadcasting seeds
Of human decay
Oh, sweat mead – me
Drink and forget
That you once believed
That your mom was Jesus
One who performed the
Loaves and fishes miracle
Every night of your youth
Forget that your devout
Grandmother died blocks away
From the Church she attended
Religiously
No black-robed middleman
Walked the distance for her
Forget
Forget the sweet-soft theft
Of innocence
Forget
That you have to
Walk from this room
Unguarded now
With only darkness
Assured in afterlife
Forget the child who
Wants her pretty
Mom happily warm
Forever after
And
Forget the idea of reuniting
That was her – uncommonly disheveled
Ashes humorously weighted, heavy –
Your last vision to imagine
Her gray dust – scattered
But not lost
Writing the Obits
I can put it off no longer
No coffee mug large enough
To sip the deed
To be done
It must be drunk
Whole, full-faced
Eye-to-eye, the names
The departed
Journeys
Cut short?
Maybe not.
Maybe
Multiple lives lived
In one
With all the answers
Leaving the living
Clueless with grief
And rose-colored
Verse:
Cleansing
Death’s decay
Gilding with a
Heart’s bouquet
