Great-headed and shaggy, he eats with his fingers and wears his shoes down at the corners, mouth tearing at the corners with godwords, tongue thick with prophecy, voice a tall tree in a small space. A cathedral of trees, five trunks from one root, moss promiscuous on fence posts and signage, cable rising through the rain a third of a mile or more.
In the bar afterwards, clatter of pucks and stale beer, redheads arguing at the bar, racists crouched outside like russian patriarchs, like joseph’s brothers, like potiphar’s wife, punishment in advance of a crime. Broken car windows blue as seaglass, fires and riots in the college district, poets making out in the bathroom until the bartender drives them out sodden with trub.
Churches dissolve like this: when the congregation matters more than the credo, when the credo matters more than the congregation. Names written on the undersides of tables that never get overturned, too little money, too much work. The wine is swallowed to the lees, the yeast asphyxiates on its own blind reproduction.