Pageant sash emblazoned on his chest,

White Jesus holds a staff under his arm.

Clean. Serene. Suppressing indigestion

as Sunday’s sermon twists, a lodestone bomb

locked in my gut, I contemplate still life—

Still, life in portraiture may smuggle truth,

if truth is where the bread invites the knife.

We nurse our credos like an aching tooth.

When I pray to the Lord, I dream Him moved

in heaven: all ears dragged to the ground—

black earth—I buckle in—steel tracks, bent, smoothed—

The engine of the maker runs me down

and God is both the table and the hunger,

and I am both the bullet and the gunner.