Doxology
Buzzed on Kool-Aid and ginger snaps,
we build a temple from Popsicle sticks.
My friend Glenda sees Jesus’s face
in a piece of toast. O land of milk and honey,
false idols, Red Sea parting. Verses flow
at Vacation Bible School. We wear our silver
crayons down to nubs, angeling the afterlife.
Sixteen and without mercy, I declare myself
atheist. From kin unmoored.
Bereft of: Beatrice, Roxie, Pollye, Etta.
O leopard-spandex Jezebel.
No husband! No children! Heathen!
Rumors abound. Vintage sweaters, moth-eaten,
rhinestoned, pearled.
I am my own god, my own high priestess.
Mine own book of timothy. Tent revival,
mud and silt, river risen, my own baptism.
Protector of sayeth, goeth, It came to pass.
My own pharaoh, linen-spooled, lavender-
doused. Pickle my heart in cassia and cinnamon.
Gold my mask.
* * * * *
Great-Great Grandfather Thacker Talks in My Ear
We are fed milk-soaked bread
from a bakery manned by convicts.
On my chin, the crumbs of a killer,
the falsely accused. What does it matter,
hands kneading flour, yeast, salt.
My hours numbered.
Our cots in military rows.
Bedpans clang and I call out
shyly, confused as to the century.
Is this my voice
or the river’s. Laudanum-dosed,
I dream a stack of limbs
outside the tent, bonfire spitting
sparks into the cold.
By glow of oil lamps, nurses flutter
like a plague of moths
and I step out of this skin.
Brethren, I surrender.