The luster has worn off
Revealing the worm eaten rot
Of unvarnished racism

It wasn’t a river  
just a pool,
more of a hotub,
set off from the sanctuary—
and when I was eased
into  the water
I didn’t see God
in the streams above.

And I didn’t see her
lost in the thunder
of the racetrack
just beyond the church.

She was beyond
my line of sight,
soaking up congratulations
from the congregation.

The pastor gave me
a gentle pat on my back,
shook my hand, three times,
handed me a towel
and welcomed me to the flock.

I was just another sinner saved
and left to go his own way,
certain in the faith
that God will provide.

She said she would meet
me back at her place
after the potluck.

I wrang the towel
of every last drop
and  handed it
back to her.

I walked back to
my old white Civic,
turned it over
and felt the
cool Jesus breeze
of the A/C hit my face.

The voice inside
told me to do the
first thing I heard
on the radio.

I heard Ray Charles
in his blindness
croon to me:

“Hit the road Jack
and don't you come back
No more, no more, no more, no more.

Hit the road Jack
and don't you come back
No more.”

dear eurydice,
what did it feel like to die twice?
did it hurt more the first time,
weaned onto the sticky honey of love,
only to drown in the sugar as it turned to poison?
or did it hurt more the second,
when you were already bled dry,
to once more hear the siren’s song of your beloved,
only to be gutted by his greed?
did it feel more like a stab and a twist,
or was it more of a thud, then emptiness?
did you die a third time,
when you realized your beloved had run out of chances,
and that you had forever sunk?

///

eurydice, i heard a little rumor
that orpheus used to sing to you under the stars.
did his songs paint you a perfect little world
"for your eyes only" he would say
the way that my love did for me?
one that locked away all your fears,
washing across your vision
until it was tinted over with rosemary?
tell me eurydice,
did you dream of orpheus’ song
like i dreamed of my supposed savior,
humming sweet promises
that couldn’t be kept?

///

did you know, eurydice,
the first time i drowned,
i too had been the victim of a viper?
its venom had blinded me first,
it cursed me with sight;
i saw the world unraveled,
bared in all its debauchery
as savagery unsheathed silence,
nailing women to the cross,
and children to their graves;
an utter panem et circenses
while society watched them bleed.

did you know too,
i was smothered in honey,
just like you?
i tasted the sugared ashes
of the skies unfolding,
as stars turned to bombs in the air,
one little boy crying,
and one fat man dying;
society had found its penance
a faux but effortless salvation.

i like to think it was a blessing:
a little gift, the anesthetization that followed,
how the viper had wrangled out my lungs,
emptying me before i could breathe again,
only to find toxins rather than faith pouring in.
i can’t help but wonder, eurydice,
why were you given your lungs back,
if only temporarily?
did it feel good to have that final breath,
a final glimpse of your favorite delusion,
even if you had already fallen?

///

they say that everyone is born twice:
once on the day their umbilical is untangled and cut,
and once on the day they untangle their own mess;
but what happens when you die a third, a fourth,
and a fifth time before you are born again?
i ask this to you eurydice,
because it seems, like you,
i am already dead.

to the disillusioned goddess––

your journey was that of a conqueror
creating an identity so vivid you lost yourself

creation in broken chains
destruction in broken bodies

see now your complacency, your hissed arrogance
all hail the goddess, crimson trailing in her wake

farewell, you disillusioned goddess,
i pray you start anew amongst the stars

I looked out over
the peninsula of ice
reaching out into the rippling lake,
unsettled as I.
Snow covered peaks on the horizon
like clouds,
dreams and ideals melted
in decades poured out
in earnest labor.

The tall gaunt preacher
stood stoop-shouldered
his black hat barely gripped
in his hand held against his left leg
his face sad, eyes cast down
as if to discern what had gone wrong.

The rusted out bike
tires flattened, lay on bricks discarded
from an old church
with a cast iron cross
aching and alienated.

A once sparkling life
may seem barely more than refuge
but a soul stirs
still beaming,
a lighthouse
on the sea
crashing against the rocky shoal.