I awoke one Sunday morning
your face up over me
on a billboard near a switch yard
on the road to Calgary
strange to lay there looking up
at your paper eyes
turned to where she walked away
on the railroad ties.
 
Oh, flat Jesus
I’ve fallen from your sleeve
looking for someone I lost
scattered in these weeds–

My sister, 
where 
have you gone?

I think she was a hooker
she worked the cheap motels
for a room beneath a tavern
with dirty window wells
she said she was a totem pole
that faced the wild sea 
smashing stacks and cobblestones
for all eternity

Outside in the wind
where my boundaries end
she begins
 
Oh, flat Jesus
I’ve fallen from your sleeve
looking for someone I loved
and never meant to leave.

My sister,
where 
have you gone? 

I saw her in a drifter’s camp
down in Idaho
sad about the gifts she gave
me thirty years ago
a switchblade comb with silver trim
and candy cigarettes
that couldn’t stop the parish priest
beneath the basement steps. 

On concrete near the coal
I sent my sister soul
away.
 
Oh, flat Jesus
I’ve dried up on your sleeve
and tore like scraps of paper
in the winds of make-believe.

Sister,
where
have you gone?

I’ll take it to the boxcars
let the spray paint say my name
sit back on a metal floor
while life rolls by the frame
the sand sweeps off the spoil banks
my chin rides on my sleeve
don’t know where all the sinners go
I just know they leave
yeah, I just know they leave.





Photo: Michaela St. pexels.com