Stephan Anstey
Massachusetts, USA
Thin little gods in argyle socks hold up half-ordained ghosts in thimbles. Each spirit knows
the communion of whiskey and ice,
but not piety, not holiness, not penance, not the miracle of a body.
A thousand thumbs point toward heaven like a hymn proclaiming holiness neither sipped nor watered down.
The haunted gods of nearly-nothing use meaningless stubby fingers
pull needles through the fabric of time, hope it wears well when
they are through. They are through and through perturbed
A million cells full of the imprisoned methane existences of those apparitions crowd into those corner-less spaces waiting for the smell of digesting beer to blow away.
The graceless gods with fat children bless the thumbs of just mute bishops in ankle-hugging black felt robes while their kids eat all the loaves
and all the fish – a single quilt of hate and damnation stitched carelessly.
Billions of grains of sand, huddle
in the handless hand of something greater, fill them all (the children, the bishops,
the noxious gods and the ghosts) with something close to fear.
Endless yards of fabric, torn away to the sea.
The whiskey is gone, there is no easter, so the thimbles are emptied of spirits
and filled with spirits. All the little gods
are drunk and thumb-pricked.
The fat children dance with all the lost ghosts and beg for half a blessing.
All the nearly-bishops felt nothing
but the sand between them as they stripped away the black to reveal the white flesh beneath. All the thousand thumbs still point up to heaven hoping
that is where the dead have gone.