In Matt's Wake

I.
We wore feathered hats and
sleek animal hides, our eyes
gazing skyward while we
slaughtered

The sacrificial lamb on a bed
of toothless smiles and baby
blue eyes, pretending not to
notice

How the blood stained like
satin upon our fingertips.

II.
Mother cried in the corner,
Father wept from the rafters,
and we shot holes in the concrete
supports with Red Rider's, the
BB's embedding themselves like

(the crayons that lack sheaths, waxy
scribbles on sheets of construction
paper, tiny legs and arms of paper
dolls that we ripped and shredded
into colorful confetti
and threw like rice at a wedding
or a kindergarten valentine's party)

mothers tucking their only child in at night,
reading Dr. Seuss to soothe the
monsters in the closet, under the bed,
in the back alleys of our minds and tongues
and black cavity teeth.

III.
I heard talk about Job cursing God,
though it was only a rumor.

I mean, how could a straight shooter
like Job, a wealthy, faithful, God-fearing son
of a gun, turn on his heels with
his middle finger raised in
reverence and yell

Fuck off!

And, how could he then proceed
to the single tree left in his pastures,
where his sheep and cattle and all
his little boys and girls once gathered,
sling one end of his hempen rope over a branch
bent to heaven, and cleanly knot a noose
on the other?

(I would imagine that he stood
on a branch not eight feet
from the ground. Did he
jump, his neck snapping
like a firecracker,
or did the tree rear up as if piloted
by God himself, and strike him
dead upon the earth?)

Tell me, does it seem plausible that
he would slip his head into that noose
and tug it tight?


Jesus wept and
Job hung.

IV.
We sat on top of
The Last Supper,
overlooking the cemetery that was
bathed in pale moonlight, passing
a bowl between us as we partook in
silent communion.

Clouds struggled to take form
under the moons sad smile,
molding themselves into a question
that I could not be bothered with.

I wondered what it felt like to
trespass amongst the gaping craters,
bounding across the surface without
gravity's grip.

I closed my eyes and thought about
(the tree where Matt smoked his last
three cigarettes in succession, the
broken branch where he stood until
it could hold his weight no longer, how
the sky watched helplessly and mourned
late into the morning) how slowly the earth
spins.