Godcatcher

Out in the old neighborhood
something has gotten loose 
that resembles a sun-headed god

It just ran behind Morelli’s Market
which has been closed for twenty years
The rotten old building’s shining like bonfire

There are a lot of indigent gods these days
many of whom live off the scraps of blood sacrifice
Morelli’s had the best meat anywhere

so maybe the renegade’s got a taste 
for decades-old clotted sawdust
or wants to suck the dry butcher’s block

A polytheist might tell you there’s a rebirth here
An acolyte of such a god might demand you bow your head
I’m going to say it’s only a modestly big deal

I think the god is indeed inside the buliding 
With that face he’s likely a sky god and therefore 
almost certainly a male and vandalous god

so we have to get him out of there
before he burns the place down
Sky gods always seem to screw things up

So in I go with a goat on a chain and a bag
to slip over Sunface when he bends to suck the goat
(It’s a myth promulgated by the gods

that a god cannot be easily subdued)
Once we’ve got him
we take him to the river and drown him

his head sizzling the pond almost dry
as it sputters out to a coal then an ember
then a memory relic or theological curiosity

We leave him there on the bank on display
It’s safer than trying to bury him
Someone eventually always digs them up 

and they come phoenix-quick back to bug us again

After we’re done I go back to where Morelli’s was
When I was young this was my bright Saturday morning
Up early with Mom to buy meat

I loved to watch the blood pool
in the sawdust behind the counter 
until Mike Morelli swept it away 

Now it’s a prime place for these old gods to hide 
in the wreckage of past age full of red memory
I chase one out of here at least once a week

shining like bonfire
faces smeared
I almost regret the deaths of all those goats