shit where I’m from all you had
to do to make a man
disappear
was give him the love of a good woman
and a little temptation from a bad one
and that ain’t a trick
of nothing except two
stars snapping their fingers
together at the right rhythm
and before you know it,
everybody gonna find themselves
behind a new curtain.
The first funeral is when you sweat
through a suit on stage and the women don’t even bother
screaming. Everything that comes after is just waiting.
I seen the future too once and wasn’t nothin’ there
except a trail of broken hearts calling me daddy.
I seen progress and all I got is these empty rooms. Don’t let
all that begging fool you, baby. I didn’t never want forgiveness
or any type of heaven that didn’t wash off with a sunrise.
In a field somewhere, I imagine all the parts of myself I left behind
writhing themselves back together. And that’s the trick.
You make yourself a god to someone new
every night and then before you know it, you can write
your own bible. I was building a grave this whole time and you all
were too drunk on the howling of naked
skin to notice. It takes a man to go home
and die. It takes a man to drain the light from his mother’s eyes
while blood makes the outline of a small boy’s hand on her Sunday dress.
In this version of the gospel, the flood is already there.
In this version, Noah opens the doors to the ark and begs
the animals to come inside but they shake their heads
and march into the drowning one by one.