A Prayer at the Moment After the Moment of Truth

Oh, bountiful life!

Behold that brief instant after the coup de grace

when life is known for what it is too late...

when a desperate surge

quivers the legs to stiffness.

 

And then their flashing silk swirls about him,

and their thousand feet,

coming from where they were not before,

dare stamp the dust

to rise

to his heavy eyes.

And his eyes, hoarding sight,

become acquiescent, not knowing

the business of legs that sway

under his decorated corpse.

Swaying redwoods,

a ululating, windswept arena--

scarlet jungle, ringed.

A thousand holy cities,

credos of a million sects,

mouths trembling with curses—

the poor awaiting their portion of gristle--

all mankind throbbing for his demise.

Until the surge saps away,

and those eyes see only pulsating red,

cut short by the small knife behind the skull.

Finally, sand is oblivion,

blotting all traces of the life

drowned in the crimson flood.

And all men shall be glaziers,

amid the sands of eternal oblivion. 
Amen.

[This appears in my "Mexico--Dust in My Blood"]