You are crouched before the fire
in a state park by the highway
and through the heavy pine trees
ten-ton trucks go groaning by
Like the screams of your Aunt Barbara
who went crazy in the 70's
wrote poems to Jimmy Carter
but forgot to feed her kids
But it's the first time you're together
since he got out of the hospital
Raccoons in the darkness
drag off your hotdog buns
But, you're happy just to lie there
in your plastic tent from Wal-Mart
like sticks and fallen dead leaves
to feed the fire of the world
But which is more important,
to comfort an old woman
or see visions of the heavens
in the stumps of fallen trees?
Albert Einstein trembled
when he saw that time was water,
seeping through the rafters
to put out this burning world
Next morning you're at Waffle House
Toast and eggs and hash browns
Truckers chain-smoke Camels
over plastic cups of juice
And you remember how he cried
when they strapped him to the stretcher,
convinced his arms were burning
with electricity from heaven
You remember how he told you
that black holes were like Jesus
And the crucifix was a battery
that filled the air with fire
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
/ Slide up