A Memphis Introspective

Forgot all but your spine-rattles
Under garments, white
You filed your talons
On my houndstooth jacket
We sat through marble
And pall altars
Foiled were our plans
Mapped without jurisdiction
Where does the heart turn
Against bristling earshot
Where does the mouth meld
With symbolic alignment
Zippered, with no aim
Bruising, flapping adverbs
Binding woe in the slats
Of the Memphis sun

Church Wall Jesus

Daddy doesn't like robots
The words fell organic
Onto the plate and pitched camp with peas and carrots

Mommy hallucinated church-wall Jesus
Over the high branches of Oak Hill

And it was well with her soul
Jerry never came home
Her baby lost in the trusses of a million highways
And daddy never came home any more
Stranded, of mind, in the annex behind the laundry room

Welts formed on the family name
"I've had an experience."
"Yes."
"I've had an experience and I don't trust myself any longer."
"Describe this experience."
"My nails ran white with time, grown adequately to pick pennies from
Mother Earth's embrace."
"Yes."
"She sent me wrath long disguised."
"Have you shopped genres? Have you nodded in time only to save critiques
for the pillow?"
"I think I'm done here."