AS I GO FOREVER HOME

 

 

I’ll be the last to turn the lights out

if my peers have already flown

Reminiscing with a brew before sunrise

without interest in a dying sun

 

Can’t smell the dark roast the same anyway

And its taste just faints on my tongue

I’ll be the last to turn the lights out

as I go forever home

 

But I will string anew my Gibson Hummingbird,

let angels hum through the hole

Makes me cast my lukewarm coffee

for the leftover wine three nights in the cold

Not quite enough red to make the heart glad

but plenty for a grateful toast

 

Cheers to my dad who sweat blood to raise me

Cheers to my mother who even cleaned my bum

Cheers to my children who can now sail without me

And to Our Father

who knew me an eternity before I was born

 

When I was nine, I knelt at an alter

in the Salvation Army I was forced to attend

Swallowed there suddenly

in awe in God’s belly

Then in wonder

spewed back up

 

I was sentenced to die at the age of two

but the meningitis died instead

 

Thus,

 

with this last sip and a morsel of bread,

I weep remembering

Christ’s body and blood

 

Can’t smell the dark roast the same anyway

And its taste just faints on my tongue

So what! If I am not

the last to turn the lights out

 

as I go forever home