Crystal Meth Under Her Choir Robe

No surprise. Bills to pay, pain to obliterate,

a favor to a friend desperate

for more time before facing facts,

or a reason less beholden to One-day-at-a-time

or I-don’t-know-why or There-is-no-why-

I-just-like-getting-high or Then-Jesus-spoke-to-me

blather. Nothing’s enough, not even the moments

when her voice — any voice, my voice —

vanishes into the Voice the hymn

wrenches from the throats of the spiritual

paupers up there swaying in black satin.

The God of the Garden is the God

of Chemistry, too, a single sniff

in a lifetime proof enough — nothing

can slough errands or heartbreak

so fast into the metaphysical ditch

where all of it belongs. Weren’t we made

for better than the Fall, if Fall this is?

We all see what the Flood keeps doing.

A little while dry, please, a little while

with no chattering chimp between

the ears & the Wizard once more in Oz.

This is my mind, not hers. She’s a story

I heard. I’m a story I can’t stop hearing.

A plastic tarp in a monsoon may be

her future. A plush ride home to havoc.

A vision that delivers her from want,

deserving or not.