Pilot Light
Rent from DeepDyve- Pilot Light
And, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed
exodus 3:2
Darkness had always been his comfort,
but he could no longer stomach itwithout a couple of 357s. Then he'd loll for hours
on the sagging sofa, ignoring the smell of cat piss
and sour milk while staring at the fireburning in back of the oven's missing drawer—a little live thing
that sometimes flickered but hadn't yet gone out.
Mostly, he was too numb for terror,although recently the long-gone cat had returned,
singing in the flute-like voice of an angel,
and last night, when he was so high on Norcohis ears were screaming, the face of God exploded
from the pilot light, thundering: This is holy ground!
His trailer hummed with a honeyed lightthat shone beyond the wilderness. [End Page 53]
Later, when they pulled his charred corpse
from the wreckage, his cousin reckoned,He was what he was, remarking on the fact
that the only unburned items were his shoes. [End Page 54]
David Starkey has published seven full-length collections of poetry, most recently It Must Be Like the World (Pecan Grove), Circus Maximus (Biblioasis) and Like a Soprano (Serving House). In addition, over the past thirty years he has published more than five hundred poems in literary journals such as American Scholar, Georgia Review, and Southern Review. His textbook, Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief (Bedford/St. Martin's), is in its third edition.
