HEAVEN
HEAVEN IS A DEAD END STREET
Few want to admit this Unless you are lucky
enough to find a black hole up there into which
you might jettison your dead self Ditto that
resurrection is a pipe dream This line of thinking
held at bay most days in a secular age
Cancer patients have more crucial things to consider
As in: Should I have another round of chemotherapy
or succumb? Suck on freezies or kiss the sky? I am
familiar with this predicament as I accompanied a
friend many a Friday to a hospital named for a brook
Where a needle shot chemicals into the portal in her
chest And the metal taste was erased by freezies
After her final treatment we made out on the couch
as her husband readied champagne in the kitchen
Her gift for my ministrations was a giant silver heart
shot through with many babbling arrows We haven’t
seen each other for over a decade now The heart
turning black from a lack of polish But I hear that
she is still alive
__
For miles on miles the high country rolled lightless and
uninhabited, the road ferruling through dark forests of
owl trees, bat caverns, witch covens.
(Cormac McCarthy ..on heaven.. The Orchard Keeper 1965)
Summer 2018
