poem of the day 03.30.10

jesus freaks on the midnight train

there is never a good time
for these people to show up
they seems to always show up
at the wrong times
like when you’re drunk
and fighting with your wife in public
or when you’re just trying
to go back to the job from lunch
tonight they are on this train to brooklyn
it is one in the morning
we have been delayed forty minutes
because someone on the train has gotten sick
you can hear sirens wailing
on the street above us
but they are not our saviors
the jesus freaks talk about holding a vigil
for the sick and lame
thankfully they don’t
they are holding playbills from a broadway show
talking about where they’ve seen
the actors before
gossiping about which of their friends
are going to make it to heaven
they are laughing and taking bets
the way some men do about
the outcome of a football game
or the size of a woman’s tits
i’ve often thought about heaven
i’m a curious man
i sometimes wonder what it would be like to die
to end up in a utopia
where everyone and everything has come to rest
tonight, tired and half-drunk,
i think if there is a heaven like that
it is probably akin to being stuck on a train
at one in the morning
and if these people are destined to go there
then i hope i go someplace else
i hope i stay on the earth and become worm food
a light breeze on a spring afternoon
or a new oak tree
my trunk so thick
you wouldn’t even think
to try and chop me down.