It gets
no better
than this.

We’re toasty warm!  Lovely
furnishings, good food
and drink,

all justified by 
how awful the outside world
appears to be — how dare

they!  When we raise our 
pinkies, they raise theirs;
they laugh whenever we do.

We are so not like them, 
just outside, doing what we do
as we do it — not like them —

mocking us,
imitating us 
so badly, anyone can see

how utterly unlike
each other we are.
Why, they are even saying

the same things about us
out there, but of course,
the accent is all wrong

and see, the light strikes
their skin differently — such
sad imitations — wait, at last

I’ve come up with
a way this world 
could be better:

empty their hollow
information out.  
They are nothing

like us.  They are nothing
like us.  Nothing.  Don’t listen
as they try to insist otherwise.

Before dawn,
the room’s flooded
with evangelical Spanish
from the radio.

No music.  Pure preaching.
The only words I catch
in his rapid flow are
“contigo” and “alleluia.”

Rise, fall,
whitewater ecstasies
and imprecations
soak the morning

in splashes from
a torrent
rinsing away
my unholy dreams.