"Sheep's Clothing" by Virginia Laurie
Image Credit: Nathan Duck, obtained and licensed through Unsplash.
Sheep’s Clothing
He put his preaching boots on the preaching stool, rusted to red shine, blood spill,
oil spill, all those hens choked by red oil. He puts his Bible in it
to polish. He loves to sing, he loves to bury the dog. It is preaching time. He puts
his boots on the light. This here is mine, he says. It’s time. He puts
the Bible on the stool. The blood oil shines on top. He puts his boots on top,
and they do not slip. The boots have rubber soles. He has a rubber soul.
No flesh. Stone. He has oil blood. His boots are made for this. He
puts them on top of the stool which is made from his Father’s gin.
Iniquities. He didn’t stop drinking when he made this Bible. He soaked the
pages a bit to perfume ‘em. The blood oil don’t smell so good.
It needs be perfumed. Like feet. His feet, under the boots, corns
as cue sticks. He is light. And light takes Everything. It. Touches.
Touches. Call for the corn, increase it, and lay no famine upon you
for He is light. he is light. Unbearable and Hen-killing.
Lothe yourselves in your own sight. Oil blood light on the Bible, the cross
catches and throws it back, like a shot of Gin. He is light and light
takes Everything it touches. He is oil, and oil is blood, and
blood is thicker than The Bible. His boots are thicker than the Bible.
His boots are leather made of old Bibles. His boots Are the Bible,
and the stool is the oil. Yes, Gin, yes.
Everything makes sense. Like a hound out of you know. Light
takes and takes and Bibles. His boots are an oil spill,
getting all over everything they Touch on, the soles them matchheads,
Now The Bible is oil too. He’s preaching-ready, and he’s got his boots
on the damn Bible, he won’t take them famines off,
an oil spill, the light unbearable boots take everything touched
by Touches. Save you from all your uncleannesses, multiply your stone hearts.
I want his damn boots off my damn Bible. But it’s not mine now, it’s his,
tilled to abomination. Where the flesh hearts, where the city?
When we become fenced? Inhabited?
He saith Nothing now,
just sits his boots on the ruined places. He’s got his stone blood
all over it. This man made of raw feasts. He like his boots on that Bible
there. He don’t want to wash it.
How you gonna baptize with no clean water left?
He want to be the last one.
He want to soak it in the blood sun oil.
He won’t say when the wastes shall be builded. Just waste, all he say.
The light is a spark, Gin, and dog graves. He digs
so deep, down to red. What’s dogs
left from the earth howl at the smell of Gin and pool,
pools made of red oil, idols, and the blood’s coming up out the
desolate, ground, and we’re all goin’ flames-up now,
Touched and bloody Unbearable.
Virginia Laurie is an English major at Washington and Lee University whose work has been published in LandLocked, Phantom Kangaroo, Cathexis Northwest Press and more. Read more about Virginia at her website https://virginialaurie.com/