In Red Bank, painted red, the heat Kills infants, sprawling at their mother's feet, Packing into Woolworth's for Easter flowers And rattling water pistols now on sale. 5 At Reckless Place a barbecue begins, Matches flash and blacken on wet coal, near A gallon tin of gas, waiting to explode. The children hang like lilies from their necks; Open-mouthed, alive, they squab the mall 10 In summer cut-offs, roiling at the sight That floats in marijuana spikes of color Of Barbie's head of smiles ghosting the Navasink In dream apparel, while a plastic Christ Bobs wished-for and haunted on black swells. 15 In Red Bank, where a squall of heats Unhouses God from a fitful sleep Like dozing Godzilla from the China Sea, And ferries hellish stenches noseward in fuming oils As far as Prowns, the parade 20 Which vaulted Christ among us, an Olympic star Bright and burning on chrysanthemums, Was over weeks ago. White as milk, The holy faces melt in boredom as they pass In lowing Volvos, while, near the fire, red men 25 Stutter useless baptism from a firehose.... Everything in cinders is coming down! O Jesus, Jesus, standing in the rainbow Of the hose, shout deliverance again And scald these unbelievers with your breath. 30 Drenched in dreaming sweat I saw Souls wake in blood, behind The Broad Street Exchange, butcher-red, and rise In dead march ordinance against the skies Shuffling to the stocks, and the bell 35 Of RBC came clanging straight from Hell While trumpeting sirens foretold the fire That has risen, skimming every street Until the sun and mud-baked river Is fire. Resurrection will visit us after death 40 Has burned our smoking bones of sin, and we wake Purged from the grave, waist-deep in the flaming Shallows of our lives, and stand, and wait, For Heaven's hissing flesh to drop on us like cloth.
From the collection "Red Bank"
Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
More information available on gregglory.com.