Sermon Applewood's Wife

for whatever
reason she left
the orchard to sin,
the last Applewood pulpit
sermon preached was about
family and credibility with the lord,

but what he
forgot to mention
was his sin thirty years
ago when he struck a deal
with the devil's serial fornicator
addiction when the women didn't
measure up to his godly preference,

religion builds
all kinds of pulpits,
oak, cherrywood, walnut,
and Applewood, hard and
trying to cure anything but
a straight branch,

thing is, that
branch thrives
thirty years later
on polygamy and
marquis de sade, and
that branch has branched
Out to film, television, and more
books, and Sermon Applewood's
Wife caught wind of it, the rest is
scandal's atlas weaving through the
Tree of Life.

Copyright Ms. Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist