Another Sunday Massacre

Parishioners prepare for the pastor’s daughter,

organ pipe pitched just in time for Sunday

worship.

Pensive, she hesitates before the pew, the heels

of her patent shoes pausing to click like a stuck latch.

Then that unimaginable god of firearms,

ready to reign in spite of all those altars

built and hemmed over, he comes forth.

Ritual can come as a relief, family’s fair game in order to

escape the weekday drudge of pumpjacks and

weather.

In every home a rifle for dove-hunting, just television

and the ordinary, machines patched to hold until the rapture.

Blessed mornings, breakfast served as usual,

hymns hummed under the breath, pumpkins

still grinning from the porch steps, leaves scattered.

One-blinking-light-town, cursed again by the wind

and the man who would not stand down, his ballistic vest held

tight.

He fired until the faces of the church were on the shoulders

of all those who came before, name upon name like

the biblical lists of those who betrothed and begat,

while caution turned to carnage mid-prayer.

Would they were immersed in anything but blood.