In this restaurant a plate of bluefish pâté
and matzos begin memorable meals.
The cracker is ridged, seems planked, an old wall
streaked sepia, very nearly black
in Tigrett, Tennessee
where it burned
into a matzo’s twin. While waiting
for a Martha’s Vineyard salad, I rebuild the church
with crackers, pâté as paste
as a flaming dessert arrives at another table where diners
are ready for a second magnum of champagne; every day
is an anniversary; every minute, a commemoration
so there is no reason to ever be sober
to excuse incendiaries who gave up the bottle,
threw alcohol at the church, spectacular reform
in flames themselves ordinary—there’d been fire in that church
many times, every Sunday and even at the Thursday
choir rehearsals. For years there’d been a fired-up congregation
so seething, neighborhoods they marched through ignited
no matter their intention; just as natural as summer.
There were hot links as active as telephone lines
whose poles mark the countryside as if the nation is helpless
without a crucifix every few yards; pity they are combustible
and that fire itself is holy, that its smoke merges with atmosphere,
that we breathe its residue, that when it is thick and black enough
to believe in, it betrays and chokes us; pity
that it is the vehicle that proves the coming of the Lord,
the establishment of his kingdom, his superiority because
fire that maintains him disfigures us; when we try to embrace
him; we find ourselves out on a limb burning. The meal
tastes divine, simply divine
and I eat it in the presence of a companion dark as scab,
as if skin burned off was replaced as he healed
with this total-body scab
under which he is pink as a pig, unclean at least
through Malachi.
In my left hand, a dash of Lot’s wife; in my right, a mill
to freshly grind the devil, since fire is power
both the supreme good and supreme evil are entitled
to it; most of the time, what did it matter
who was in charge of Job? Both burnt him.
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