Incense

God, in your bulletproof vest running around security-guarded

in gates to which only you have the key,

are you happy to be so disparate from the

frail flesh you supposedly hold so dear as to

dress your only child in, albeit so fancy of soul that

even as infant he was in your eyes already a king?

Are you thinking that in forsaking his flimsy fiber

in favor of the likes of me and, say, my neighbor with

the screeching boom-box, motorcycle gear and tacky statues 

sightless under little crosses erected among the lilies

and eunonymous to ward off noxious weeds and more,

that as a father you did the right thing by that bloody pulp of progeny

who in the end was reduced to nothing but terrible thirst

under your crazed sunshine baking him to leather,

along with those luckless companions who would get none

of your right-handedness which never knows

what the left hand is doing anyway?

Seems to me the smoke from his nostrils

or the churchy incense in our own says just what a

wonderful weekend dad you are, sometimes there

to take us roller skating, or to the circus or some dollar movie

or out for fast food and shakes.... but really, go figure,

you let your own flesh and blood sag ever so slowly

on foot-long rusty nails for the good of the majority
making you,

surely the king of democrats, deserving at least

a cutesy mug bold red letters reading Best Dad Ever,

as you slake that profound Deific thirst with something

other than mojo...something far stronger thinking to

take your mind off the agony you inflicted

upon that awkward barefoot boy -- just so's we

could live forever with a playful parent like you???

Copyright Julianza Shavin 2008