Between the Lion's Toes Grow Girls and Flowers

The world is on fire and there are none
to put it out. Through a stones eye, see
that people are flames, consuming everything?
Perhaps “the new covenant” will be
a vasectomy for God’s un-chosen people.
Would they dare sterilize us with a virus?
How can I smile at your baby, a September
sprout gripping my finger like roots do soil?
“I’m your Grandfather and I’ll be
dead before we can have a conversation.”
Your husband laughs and you frown at me
from your place of Scientology.
The garbage truck comes and deposits
our quota of glass, rotten pork and industrial liquids.
Perhaps this is why I stopped going to church.
I don’t know. But your mother will mix
the waste in with milk and make it taste
like coffee. She’s a good woman.
Jesus came and went, selling
salvation door-to-door. But they thought
he was a Mormon and wouldn’t give up
their cigarettes and beer for the time it takes to listen.
I offered him a job handing out flowers for free
and he accepted. So Jesus and I went to church.
We picked all the Dandelions, Lupines and even the sweet
white heads of Clover found on the way. I laughed as the child
threw her arms around his legs and kissed him
when he gave her a wild, white Lilly. Three people
testified in court they saw him pay the girl with a flower.
Until then, it was only a weed one scarce would notice.

Email: Alacrity Stone

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