Here, there’s a boy with a silver knife
that can’t remember his name
and the old man who tells him
to unzip his memories
knuckle by knuckle
lip to metal lip.

At the church, we take turns
reading the book of life, the words
needled through each page with blood-threads,
fingers dipped in soul wine,
the pastor is a woman
with small birds living in the hollows of her eyes.

Today, a mother sleeps
in a cemetery of rusted cars
dreaming of her own skeleton
and a man crawls on his stomach and elbows
across a field of blooming red poppies
because the bombs in his mind
never stopped falling.

In the church at the edge of time
there is a groove of light
where a small god burns old photos for warmth
and he won’t listen
unless the rusted gates are open
and the blood lights are on.

Today, there’s a coronation
and the vipers are in attendance
the telescope on the pyre swivels to the closest planet,
and the stars fall like chainsawed trees—
the king will tell you it’s the best day ever,
    but pay attention:
the birds are still howling
at broken televisions, their shackles
only as tight as you imagine them.

The boy can always trade in his silver knife
for that old soiled Elmo plush
but in this church of everything
the boy is the knife
the knuckle
and the older man unzipping his memories
    and he doesn’t see the seam
just under his lip and between his eyes
where the small god will creep in for a peek.

You can still change the ending.
Press the rewind button on the altar pyre,
and leave this palace of glass
for that gutted, roofless house next door—
You’ll find two slender birches growing inside
their branches reaching for something like light.

We can pretend to be those trees with no names
inching toward each other in spring snow

    no one would ever know.

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from Cislyn Smith during our annual Kickstarter.]