S for salt, for
spoiling crops. S
for worse or
no choice other
than exodus or
a territorial discourse.
S for stretched out
in a morgue, plastic
bags like garbage
you discard. S
for stinking hog,
onions, frenetic
maggots laying
their baggage. S
for still you’re flesh,
meat butchered, bootlegged
in the marketplace. S
some might say
you’re gas sloshed
from a tank. Others
that first blue
God doused
on a tarp, hated it
and left it to rot, or
you’re that sound
he loved so much,
smaller than a
cricket song.
S for scalp, for the soiled
search of your god. S
for complete
utter darkness. S
for success
out of the carcass.
S for sloth, for
sickle, for a solar system
beyond sable
incarceration. S
for ES which is S
which is señor of a
thousand choruses.
S for savior, for
scavengers and sculptors
you throw out
of the temple. S
for so much white-
noise pressure
even the cardinal
won’t canonize you.
No, not that bird, not
that pontiff, nor your
arsenal. S for still
to this day in your
belly, in the dive
of your mouth.