Bible Serpentine: Kid Wade's Canyon

drunkard
preacher shouldering
his way to the cliff, he watches
Four women on their way to 1890s
Cripple Creek, widows, strays, witches
and reformed communing around Mt. Pisgah peak,

his eyes
make all of
them disappear
intoxication blacks
him out,

Kid Wade
and his pony boys
sold preacher a hot horse back
in Nebraska, little did preacher know
the horse had a split hoof, for he knew not he
blundered, God's sky thundered,

The Old Testament
blazed with fire and light,

wagon trains
parked in a circle,
circumcised their boys
as religious duty, trail boss
cooks the foreskin and throws it
to the band of coyotes holding Friday
as sacred as the Sabbath, women with
two winged cherubs guard the flour sacks
under the pulpit in the chuck wagon, secured bible
serpentine, Kid Wade's Canyon is rough, too rough
for pretenders,
a rough-hewn
wooden cross
thrown up over
the top of the wagon
canvas secured to keep
it from invaders' hands, the
wagons snake through the canyon,
preacher thinks
he can fly, his garb
typical, habit black,
white collar and
whiskey flask, they
won't  miss him when

he jumps
his horse across
the cliff to soar with
the eagles, professing
his innocence of a plan
backfired, for it is now he
knows he blundered, and
so does everybody else,

the horse
trips from the
split hoof that gave way,
 

*

bottom of the cliff
a suitable place, coyotes
chewing the foreskin, Four women
on their way to 1890s Cripple Creek,
widows, strays, witches and reformed
communing around Mt. Pisgah peak were
about to hand him a fake pardon anyway, karma
of Bible Serpentine: Kid Wade's Canyon.

Copyright Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist