The deceivers, each of them wringing their undersized hands, and the unrepentant wearing snow shoes that leave question marks on the dirt road behind them; the insomniac gang from the ninth circle; the crew of bloodshot despots, the dictators rubbing their rope burns; a Judas for each hour of eternity—they all show up when the news gets out: everybody goes to Heaven. The doorman sees them coming and scratches the bald spot behind his ear, his mind drifting towards the next gig now that his job is done. The saints and zealots who had no lives beyond duty, the ones who whispered into the ears of folk like my parents, the converts, the most blind and love-struck: they will spend their retirement painting sublime landscapes and portraits of their persecutors. A pair of bristle-jawed lynch men find their victims and invite them to lunch at a restaurant made of mist. The wrong-doers with no bodies settle into the no bodies of the wronged. Phrases like I’ll pray for you and God Bless you or be with you become obsolete. No one need step out into the wide blue night looking down and looking back and looking up. No one need bother looking for the Truth. The vote outlawing Church passes nine to one. The preachers form a Lonely Hearts Club, and meet week nights in tents outside town. The theologian finds the book God had been reading by the pool, but finds no God. Some of the minor sinners, the superfluous, the revelers of part time desire, remain in the post office waiting for word.

And what becomes of the righteous, the ones who lived lives full of absolute faith and virtue? They picket, mope or pace outside the open gates. You can imagine their outrage. Their version of Heaven has become a ring of smoke. It has become a thing of the past, and the past has become all that’s left. They are so full of the past, they cannot be changed now. They are so full of Heaven, they cannot be filled.

IT CAN’T BE GOOD SITTING AROUND IMAGINING YOUR DEATH

IT CAN’T BE GOOD SITTING AROUND IMAGINING YOUR DEATH

Anyhow, leave the World Book Encyclopedias to the book peddler
who will never travel beyond the poor black college kids peddling
their history
books at semester’s end. It might be the grass growing
on the plots of dirt above our ancestors that makes me say this.

It might be the white woman or man our son or daughter will marry
and the white woman or man our grandson or granddaughter will
marry,
all of them wading into the future until one of our line claims to be
Sicilian.
Leave instructions: the granddaughter of our granddaughter shall be
named Cicily.