Sooted Coke Spoons and Bloody Coat Hangers

the girl
stopped to
tie her shoe
laces there were
no kool-aid smiles
only a man making ugly
faces his tacky beard looking
like one on those evil demons in
a comic book her sarcasm tore his
whiskers out and his chin bled when
she said "the axle on my wagon is bent
because of you the quilt on mama's bed
was burned in kerosene and my dog hides
under the bed"

thirty years
ago a bible set
fire to a shed that
reeked of abortions and
cooking crack a lingering
smell of burning plastic jesus
melted memories in sooted coke
spoons ammonia bottles and empty
baking soda boxes decayed cardboard
and a sepia-yellowed midwife t-shirt where
her breasts wet nursed what babies were allowed
to live off the hook of bloody coat hangers

cult revival
is cooking again
new-age jeep trafficking
and warped paraphernalia
hookahs and shepherd's hooks
preaching shady gospel under sunny
trees white horse wood tick taking a dose
of self-medicating books prophecy nostradamus
predicted soot coke spoons and tar babies residue
on coat hangers

just preheat
the tin foil and
wipe away the carbon
before taking a boot the
axle snapped the quilt is ash
and the dog hides under the bed
the metaphysical cia tracks this poetry
how deep the needle how black the spoon
how bloody the coat hanger the drone can see

Copyright Ms. Sage Sweetwater, Celebrity firebrand lesbian novelist