All those pretty boys and girls
in Utah with perfect families
and straight teeth and
golf weekends and BYU

I wanna be a Latter Day Saint:
faith like a gorget keeping
holiness inside and sin without,
my eyes turn blue contemplating sainthood

In the south they shout in tongues
they have a private line with the devil
and he lurks in the hearts of
Communists and liberals he says.

I wanna be a born again Baptist
full of hellfire and moonshine
fundamentally patriotic and God
looking down every day at my white hot purity
It’s a good day to be a Baptist my friend.

My Catholicism is a ragged old red robe
seams dragging through the dust
of old men’s prayers and smelling
of my grandmother’s face powder
even when she died.

In the end the rain washes over the berms
of every river not only Jordan
and when the flood comes I will be
lying open in a field
smelling of damp earth and crushed grass
my knees unbent and my hands unclasped
my heart in my mouth still beating.