Stacks of records filled my bookcases like extinct animals just looking for a home
And you told me to burn them,
so the music could float up into the trees and teach the leaves to dance
to Talking Heads and Tchaikovsky.
But as the records burned,
the smoke filled my lungs and smothered the leaves,
and I realized that even the best poetry will leave you empty,
wondering when words stopped being the truth.

My grandfather was a Southern Baptist minister,
but from the way people talk about him, you’d think he was Jesus himself.
I never met him, my grandfather, but I know he must have had big, strong hands,
And a smile that would make his eyes light up
like the only things that mattered were family, God, and a warm dinner.
I know that sinners would have swallowed the Devil whole
rather than face my Pennsylvania preacher.
And I know that he was handy with a belt, when he needed to be,
But generous with a pat on the back or a firm handshake.
Most of all, I know that he broke my mother’s heart
when his heart couldn’t beat anymore,
and so he left the preacher’s wife and their babies to find his Maker in the sky.
Sometimes I wonder what he would have done when he got there,
And no one met him at the pearly gates.
I wonder how long he would have looked before giving up,
and if he would have tried to come on back home.
I wonder if he hadn’t been sure his home lay above the clouds,
If he would have fought harder for his time in this paradise.