he is (almost) risen
you can hear the chickens clucking
from inside the fresh slaughterhouse
and the people outside waiting are so calm
playing on cell phones and smoking cigarettes in line
the day before easter on a frigid april morning
i don’t know how this works
do they just go inside and pick out a chicken
send it off to the sacrifice?
i hate my shitty grocery store
but walking to work this morning
i feel a soft fondness for it
the chickens there are already dead and cut and quartered
taking all of the murder out of the meal for me
a block away i can still hear the chickens
only faintly underneath the sound of christian music
playing out inside the compound of
an emergency food pantry
there is a long line of people waiting there as well
a little less cell phone playing
a lot more cigarette smoking
the benevolent church ministers are walking
up and down the line
getting information from the people
and passing out pamphlets
reassuring them that they don’t have to attend services
in order to get some food
god loves each and all of us one and the same, they say
even the guy sleeping underneath his shopping cart
between the enterprise rent-a-car and the honda dealership
he will be risen!
one of the ministers shouts to the crowd
only no one claps or cheers
and on cue the christian music rises to a crescendo
covering the sounds of the chickens and the people
jesus christ with his dull perpetual life of holy servitude
as the rest of us live this way and that
driving fancy cars off of lots
walking to work or standing in long lines
with starving bellies
spending our single short lives in cages
in awe or disgust of that tired crucifixion
apathetic to the whole bloody mess
but always certain that the slaughter will come
and round out the blank spaces of another year.
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