When the Person Stays Dead

When the person stays dead,

you finally find time 

to deep clean the bathroom,

throw out all those promises

you almost made to God.

Afterwards, you climb the roof

and watch the stars go hunting.

Carnage chokes the sky and prayer

shoots shrieking over the edge

of the world, a river into the void.

Dawn threatens, savage with sparks

that unknot the flesh and the face

of God is a wandering home

where no one you know has been.

Way down by the water

the light still shivers offshore,

a little flame that leaps and flies

like an asteroid on the wind.

When the person stays dead,

then you know that God is a rebel

queen, with her back against the wall.