June Twenty, Three Days After

When I was a boy and a man would die we’d say a verse when the hearse went by one car two car three car four someone knocking on the devil’s door. I smoked all night myself awake and saw the lights and the day break. When the sun was done with the final star I left the house and the door ajar and went to the church. The father was nice but the holy water was cold as ice. I found a friend and felt his hand fall through mine like crumbling sand. I went to hear the talk in the square but there were headless people there. I turned to the clock for the time of day but the hole in the wall had nothing to say. Callous of heaven and careless of hell you knew something you didn’t tell. The soul you said was only fear, and heaven, well heaven at best was here. So heaven is gone if that was it and the soul lies there in the private pit but hell is big and hell is a bone and hell comes in from the edge of alone. Hell is a dead girl who walks through the town and hunts for my bed to lay herself down.