He fills the flower vases, trims the candle bases, takes small change
from
the poor box. Tyler has the key. He takes nail and hammer to tack up
the
banner of felt scraps glued together reading, "Jesus Lives In Me."
Alone in
the night he mocks the words of the preacher: "God is feeling your
every pain."
Repair the Christmas stable, restore the plaster angel. Her lips begin
to
crumble and her robes begin to peel. For Bible study in the church
basement,
hear children Gospel citing, Matthew 17:15. Alone in the night he
mocks the
arms of the preacher raised to the ceiling, "Tell God your pain."
To him the world's defiled. In Lot he sees a likeness there; he swears
this
Sodom will burn down. Near Sacred Blood there's a dance hall where
Tyler Glen
saw a black girl and a white boy kissing shamelessly. Black hands on
white
shoulders, white hands on black shoulders, dancing, and you know
what's more.
He's God's mad disciple, a righteous title, for the Word he heard he
so
misunderstood. Though simple minded, a crippled man, to know this man
is to
fear this man, to shake when he comes. Wasn't it God that let Puritans
in
Salem do what they did to the unfaithful?
Boys at the Jubilee slowly sink into brown bag whiskey drinking and
reeling
on their feet. Girls at the Jubilee in low-cut dresses yield to the
caresses
and the man-handling. Black hands on white shoulders, white hands on
black
shoulders, dancing, and you know what's more.
Through the tall blades of grass he heads for the Jubilee with a
bucket in
his right hand full of rags soaked in gasoline. He lifts the shingles
in the
dark and slips the rags there underneath. He strikes a matchstick on
the box
side and watches the rags ignite. He climbs the bell tower of the
Sacred
Blood to watch the flames rising higher toward the trees. Sirens
wailing now
toward the scene.
