the concrete on the corner of Willow and Main St.
will remember your face better than i ever could
it left impressions in your cheeks looking like
a blush run through a sieve
it will remember the skin on your knees
and how easily it tore when you fell
it will keep these pieces of you between it's teeth
until the city scrapes enough money together
to pave over your mistakes
again.

your mother gave up on you
after you stole her mother's silverware
sold the knives and forks but
boiled down the spoons
opened a new vein every day
like a bruised sunrise
like a bird lifting it's wings
broke the dam
and used the needle
to push a river into your heart.

God closed the door so you opened a window
and jumped out
let the pavement cradle you
better than i ever could.

I call myself the gardener sometimes
Whisper it to my hands at night
******* own teeth in my mouth
Feel a bulb sprout at the bottom of my lungs
and let that breath grow into a chuckle.

I call myself God's gardener
Because all I ever did was make things grow right
Sort out the bad seeds
Watch the tree heave itself trough the skin of the Earth
and then trim off the infected branches.
I grow my own vegetables
Till the rows
Harvest the ripe and throw away the rotten
Take them to the market and sell them.

I was sitting in my booth there
When I saw a **** in the garden
And I heard that high-pitched, queer-boy laugh
Like nails on a chalkboard.
Made the hairs on the back of my neck strain against their roots
and I felt sick
Watching them walking around like they were
Regular folks
and I thought to myself
What if they weren't walking anymore?
What if they weren't walking at all?
That was when my trigger finger started twitching.

Wasn't the first time that white hot burn had come licking at my soul.
I'd torched a couple Synagogues
Never felt God's love more powerful
Than the thought of how beautiful
Those flames would look
Flickering off of my shining white family's faces
Like beacons of hope.

I was just trimming the infected branches
Scrubbing my people pure and clean and pink
just like God told me to.
Folks don't listen to God's law anymore, though
So I got 6 by 8 to move in
Only my hands and my breath for company.
Sometimes, I lay on my cot and stick my ******* and forefinger out like a gun
bang bang
Laugh to myself
Empty a clip and fire five more shots,
But that high-pitched, queer-boy laugh still bounces back to me
Echoing off the bars of my cell
and I swallow my dry tongue.
I can never quite get my own mouth clear enough
But I am still a righteous man
an Aryan king
a minister ordained by the Christ's Covenant Church
I know the bible like it is scrawled on the walls of my skull
and the bible says,

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall be put to death; and their blood shall be upon them.

So I lay them down next to each other
and whispered the words of my Lord and Savior
Spoke it with my trigger finger
Emptied a clip and fired five more shots.

*bang bang