1-800-Jesus
by Zoe Elisabeth

Runestone, volume 10

1.

 

By now everything feels ugly.         Under spoiled light, the dash lines 

form gross patterns on the concrete;      they snake across my skin 

& up my leg, 

                         diseased.             White line fever in my drifting eyes

& body aches,         the incurable roll of truck tires,        declarations

of ONLY BELIEVERS WILL SURVIVE 

                                          & WIDE RIGHT TURNS.

State lines that blur & disappear,      a ricochet of Welcome! 

                                                                                              Welcome! 

                                                                                                        Welcome!       

& nothing beyond each border           but roadkill & wilted grass.

Every roadside infested with billboards—         white-teeth attorneys 

with block-letter promises,       sex clubs smeared in silhouettes      

& worn innuendo.       Pay us for your pains, your lukewarm desires.       

Out here the fields all smell like cow shit       & my teeth mold 

gas station candy into cavities,        another sunken town a flare-up 

of strip mall            & drive-thru             & red-yellow logos.    

 

You don’t have to look close   

to watch them peel.

 

 

For nights on end,      the same prognosis:

 

The same Styrofoam balanced on drowsy thighs,        $4 chicken 

bulging with fat,      engine idling while I gag     instead of swallow.      

The sluggish rise        of another elevator.         The same dingy 

shower water,       soap squeezed runny into palms,         all grease 

& lather      & the proliferation of taint.      How I forget each thought 

right after it touches me,       & how morning touches night,        

        & my body blurred into the water.          Slit-open suitcase—

clothes spilling like entrails.          The same skirt tugged up 

over my hips.       Stains I’ll never scrub out.         & later, 

surges of nausea in hotel heat,        the same flat pillows reeking 

of cigarettes & bleach.      These muffled intrusions—    

 

arguments       that leak through walls    

         & flush across my face.          Once I would’ve invented 

backstories for the faceless screech.     Delusions clinging

      to my wishful skin,             my lusts & hatreds lost in theirs. 

 

                  Now I only stick to myself—   

my clothes to my skin,          my hair to my neck. 

 

3.

 

& then I wake up dead,      

 

in another stew of shapeless night,       blackout curtains drawn 

across daylight         & the air carrying the usual—      some barbecue,       

some slaughter,     some billboard persuasions to CHOOSE LIFE.        

They say you can find God out here       if you look hard enough,         

or dial the right number.     One morning I leave a message,         

asking,           If I’m here for a reason,         what is it?       

 

Like my earlier devotion.        Sicknesses still palliated by prayer

& engine rumble.            Back then, prophecies bloomed

in every clear white line,      in the red-scorch summer leather,        

asphalt’s sudden crackle.             Back then I scraped faith         

from undialed numbers on truck doors,      the radio chanting—      

Possible, possible,             tires ground  in lush harmony,     

& when I listened closer,      my heartbeat ringing clear 

within it.              Every highway channel suffused

with its own brand of holiness.        Every shout still met 

 

    

                                                                            with an echo.