The Dead Eat Everything

Self-Portrait, Kneeling

58 s e L F - P o r t r a i t, k n e e L i n g The draw of being a saint is not the gauze-soft beauty of chastity, not the healings or casting out of demons, not even the martyr’s baptism by blood. it is the fact that there will still be work to do after dying. an assembly line of prayers to be stamped, bundled, and brought before the throne. if there is anything like leisure in my heart, Lord, remove it. if heaven is palm trees, or paved in gold, or the slow rush of waves, or candlelit, or quiet as a suburban church, give me axe, chisel, tugboat, electric, riot. send me work, Lord. i have slept enough. My hands are good hands. This is why i believe in ghosts, energies and vengeances, doors opening themselves. My spirit animal is a haunted washing machine i once owned that would rumble whenever unplugged. i’ll bet Baba is still bootlegging white lightning nightly. The dead sweat. The halo is more hard hat than headrest. do not tell me to rest in peace. i am too human to fade like static behind the tune of brushfires and gunshots and trumpets of war, too much body to stay clean, too much prayer to leave this ache and exhaust behind. somewhere, there is a river sweeping through a city so ruined, it is perfect, and there is a line of people leaving an old factory just before dusk, a man lighting a cigarette and flicking the match into the river, a woman in carhartt overalls watching the flame drop into the water, 59 and the river is a great tongue, and the woman is like the match somehow, and the man, too, and the river is moving through the city like a hairbrush, and i am sure, Lord, this is the city of my birth. 6 ...