Shrapnel

The shadow of the cross on the church drags across the ground as the moon travels through the night sky.

Dust spins and carries a sermon, with gravel and shards of glass and a hymn from the moonlight,

God hasn’t had an answer for this church in a while.

Prayers etched into the wall with the markings of dead names and images of children so close to life they forgot to pray,

The wax of a candle hangs from the altar and the corner of a bible page speaks from the edge,

The doors rust and seed their own sin into the wood flooring as their feet carve eternal markings, a half moon for each door.

From the altar, a voice berates, not as a whisper, as a claim.

“The rings of Saturn echo in her eyes, a fellowship of regret and solemnity, twisting you into knots of yourself, ouroboros.”

The pews creak under the weight of a false descendant, claiming the chapel as his own and the broken glass and the melted wax and torn pages and all.

He breathes heavy, with cigarettes for lungs, and liquor to beat the heat of the sun.

“You dance a dialogue with yourself and not your other self. You sin in imagination only.”

He has heavy boots, the heel click echoing off the cold of stained glass, half broken and resting on the steps for the sake of divine variety.

In the rafters, a spider tries to spell its name in the webbing and still spells it wrong.

“A man or any being always learns to swallow names he hasn’t said in years. It’s the natural death before death.”

A lighter is lit, elevated into the dusty infected air of the dying church, aging as any other living thing.

The walls in the light confess to themselves and the mice scurry off into the floorboards to carry on the sermon,

The coyotes chirp in confusion and the ravens twirl their wicked dance around the moon,

No one really listens and they bow anyways,

A man or the faint shadow of a man walks in between the pews layered in cracks and old love, old love that can only be fostered by youth.

The lighter still raised, still flying bright in the movement of urgency, a cracked bell solves the equation of god in its broken and silent glory,

He gets to a confessional and the door is locked,

Dust devils twist into the glass from the wave of the rusty landscape, with dead lizards and birds that don’t sip water for days and the worms dry in the sun before any benefit can arise.

His head rests against the door hoping a word would come to him first, hand pressed against, leaving a dust print.

Eyes broken and white with traces of red glow from inside the window of the booth,

“Father, I…”

The lighter goes out.

“Father, I have sinned.”

He flicks the lighter. No spark.

He flicks it again.

And again.

Again.