Like blonde girls pray to Jesus, like a boy
soon enough learns to spit
out bullets in a war crime scene
when stranded in the Shit,
Heaven is where we thought it was, despite
the wet, persistent swell
of garbage spilling from its cans,
a rank and constant smell
of rutting, crapping dogs while luxury cars
are mounted in the yard,
a trailer park on the edge of town
beyond the boulevard
lined with shuttered stores and shattered lights
and windswept, soaked debris.
This is the Kingdom meant for you,
the respite meant for me.
This is the great communion—hobo wine
left underneath a bridge
a quarter full and waterlogged
as an abandoned fridge
gapes empty as a new-abandoned tomb,
shadowy and still.
This is the New Jerusalem,
the City on the Hill.
Original appearance in The Moth.
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