The rifle the truck the church the pew
the pastor the hymn the prayer
The tenor and alto soprano and bass
the dresses the cloth to bear
The savior and grace the wounds the blood
the bones the boards the splinters
The major chords yet the minor key
through which the bullet enters
The altar call the empty shells
the sheep on his good right hand
the least of these the not yet born
the haircuts the wedding bands
The thoughts the prayers the shrug the wish
the Lord and his setting sun
The bigger graves and the smaller ones
the guns the guns the guns
In the spring of 2018, Paul Bone will be a writer-in-residence at Rivendell Writers’ Colony in Sewanee, Tennessee. He is the author of Nostalgia for Sacrifice, and his poems have been published in The Hopkins Review, The Sycamore Review, The Birmingham Poetry Review, Think, Cherry Tree, The Southern Poetry Review, Peacock Journal, and others. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Evansville and is Co-Editor of Measure: A Review of Formal Poetry and Measure Press.
Image adapted from a photo by Dan Gold.
