Did we bow down, crushed, when told we would lose our heads
for uttering our few precious, fiery words?
No. We stood upright, put our backs to the wall,
said our last words:
“Come toward us, swing those swords, impose the sentence:
we will hold you to your corrupt words.
“Take our heads from us as we stand upright to face you.
We will not speak again. You deserve no more of our words.”
They sell straw hats at the supermarket
and in the seasonal aisles of drugstores.
They sell surgical scrubs in the seasonal aisles of drugstores
and milk and cigarettes in the gas station mini-mart.
There’s jerky and coffee on sale in the gas station mini-mart
and guns being sold from the trunk of a Mazda on A Street.
There’s illusion on sale from a Mazda’s trunk on A Street
and salvation on a rack in the storefront Lighthouse Church next door.
The whole damn nation is a storefront.
A merchant God compels us to commerce.
We’re outfitted for the part — half cowboy, half doctor.
Well armed, undernourished though stuffed,
jacked up and hacking, righteous,
and dressed for bathing in blood.
They sell lottery tickets everywhere
because while hope is still free and not easily found,
it’s the only thing
some of us have left.
Dark Matter 