Gasoline

It isn’t my hand that runs down the pews. It is the boys with emptied hearts The girls with arms full and rocking The treatable gone. Plastic jugs are more dangerous than they seem. Knives don’t carve secrets like kerosene does. Pitchers with pungent swirls jostle as I walk. They have never before felt a holier water. Down the aisle to my fate as many did before me. The Blessed Virgin lies not within the marble form above me Christ did not die on the wooden wall hangings And the gold adornments had God melted out of them long ago. This is not a holy place, but a husk. The lessons drench the priests’ robes. What nests here cannot be allowed to breed another season To gorge themselves on tinkling laughter Have your god strike me down. I hold the noose and will cinch it as I go. My God makes matches. I need only swipe them across a stone.