You skim a little Puce graffiti,
sipping from a tumbler of lukewarm Darjeeling.
You mail a glistering chain letter
to your half-hearted half-sister in Chesapeake
because you know she'll fail to pass it on
and you want someone to have evidence
of your best efforts.
You listlessly pedal your cyclocross
through a levitating backdrop of loblolly pines
all the way to the red light fringes
of your gutted hometown,
where Jane Doe junkies congregate
around lewd neon pick-up trucks.
You pause at a moth-eaten chapel
dubbed Windsong Church,
catching wafts of gimcrack gospel
drifting in the unkempt daylight.
You wonder what your infidel mother
would say if she could see you imagining
this holy house's carved intestines:
a plexiglass pulpit presiding over
golden oak slatback pews,
heirloom hymnals hypnotizing
the spire sparrows,
painted glass apostles impending, impending.
You have almost forgotten to exist
without her vivacious cinnamon hair,
the way she emanated yellow diamonds.
You almost did exist
within the flowerless space
of that total eclipse.
But here you are now,
self-righteous in your cork bed flats
and poured glass bib,
raw denim Sunday best,
littering the creek rock parking lot
with your prodigal noontime shadow,
still inconstant, waiting to believe.