Of Darker Ceremonies

After “E. 1999 Eternal” by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony Dear god of armed robberies and puff-puff-pass, a chalk outline unpeels from the street, smashes every windshield, and leaves florid temples of crack on porches. Burnt-black pleats of   joint-pressed lips prophesied your return. Please accept these nickel bags as offerings. Brick bastions of piss-stench thresholds and boarded windows require a weekly sacrifice. Is there a Tarot card called “The Corner,” a shrike shown lifting a corpse from the pike of a middle finger? Children speak to their murdered brothers with a cereal box and construction paper cut into a Ouija’s tongue that licks yes when asked if   liquor could polish a skull in a way pleasing to the dead, licks no when asked for a name.