brendan rowland

Mahwah

Christ had a Jersey accent and the toughs
strung him up on a Mahwah telephone
pole. His blood pools on the cement fields
while Madonna downs Barefoot wine from
the grail. I slow dance with Jesus’s sister under
the stoplight, wander to 7/11, light her Newport.
Flower power didn’t work––so what? We start
again. She says her name’s Miranda. I lie mine’s
Solomon; she calls me her concubine. We buy
a bag of ice, revel in an idling Tacoma’s exhaust.
I say we should strip and skinny dip in the Nile.
The sky furrows like her brow and she says there
are four Hebrew words for sin. My infidelities built
a berm of guitar solos; I can never say no to anyone
but you. I can’t flush the diphenhydramine from
my bloodline; I can’t outpace the afterimage of her
muddy eyes begging me to pray for absolution
from the faceless pastel saint on the billboard.
They’re singing we’re riding out tonight to case
the promised land in the chapel; Deardorff props
the door, beckons me in, and I grasp the gospel.
Lord, let me have Blake’s faith, roll away the stoned
hours I wished for Eddie Cochran’s death. I don’t
need the podiums, the crucifixes; I need her and
grace and a hymn pumped through a Fender Champ.