A Minute Before Midnight
In the bed of a river that runs no more
there’s a flash and I wake sitting
in sand
Pat Robertson’s shadow on my left
leaves
returns with a rune engraved with
lines he claims are fingerprints of God
(I suspect Pat drilled them in his workshop)
The heat of Jerry Falwell’s hand touches
my right shoulder
he hands me a translucent
switchblade
calls it angel wings
says he
found it on the bottom of a bone-dry sea
but
there isn’t time to judge
we have to
take the children up the mountain
I’m surprised old Pat and Jerry
seem so young
they keep their faces
to the ground so I can’t see they’re
meat puppets of a benevolent
deity
I walk with Pat who isn’t Pat
and when it begins to snow I don’t
have a coat but
there isn’t time to
go back
Halfway up the mountain we stop
at a sandwich shop
mother feeds the
children while I search the darkening sky
and see
there isn’t time to
light a candle
either we see in pitch-black night
or wait for fate at the void’s gate
