The Missionaries
I’m splattered in ink, sweatpants,
Four Roses T-shirt.
A couple of children in their Sunday best knock on my door.
They haven’t practiced their introductions very much yet.
I offer them water. As you can see,
I’m a hedonistic transsexual with no desire to be saved.
Do you need to borrow a phone? Are they feeding you enough?
Is your coat warm enough? The children say goodbye and trudge
through the snow.
Every religion believes in peace and love to some extent, I think.
Tonight I’m wishing peace and love
to all the little missionaries and their mothers,
even if they don’t always wish it for me.
Morris McLennan
The Last Days
The last days was a cathedral.
Choirs with hymnals and candlelit vigils
guarded the hushed and sacred aisle on Sunday mornings.
Just a glimpse at the congregation,
all robed in faith and kneeling in prayer,
made people want to confess the truth
about themselves to anyone who’d listen,
but no one spoke.
The last days was serene. The last days echoed hymns
like benedictions, and we loved the stained glass haven,
even though it humbled us or maybe because
it humbled us:
children peeking through pews long before the sermon,
drivers stopping by the street just for a moment of peace,
preachers who’d stand at the pulpit and promise
that if they ever lost their way, they’d find it all here.
Diem Okoye
