I first met His children
when I moved to Missouri,
that gleaming buckle
of the Bible Belt.

In the workplace,
they ate lunch at a table
by themselves,
away from we sinners.

They left cartoon gospel tracts
in the bathroom, the break room,
in dark corners of the warehouse,
shiny beacons for the lost.

Their message removed
stumbling blocks of poetry,
dark mountains of metaphor,
and revealed the shining Sun
of literal biblical Truth.

They wore the message
like black and white armor
that kept the howling grey
of the world at bay.

And having been reborn,
washed clean in some muddy river,
they were free to cast
a thousand stones.

A newspaper story,
rockstar’s death by overdose.
One of His children smiled and asked,
“I wonder where he is now?”
A rhetorical question.
They knew. And laughed.

I shivered, a vision of them
beachfront, enjoying the view
as the ****** writhed and screamed
in a literal lake of fire.

The laughter of His children
reborn in my unbelieving ears
as the sick scraping of knives
sharpening marshmallow sticks.