Like blonde girls pray to Jesus, like a boy
+++++++soon enough learns to spit
out bullets in a war crime scene
+++++++when stranded in the Shit,

Heaven is where we thought it was, despite
+++++++the wet, persistent swell
of garbage spilling from its cans,
+++++++a rank and constant smell

of rutting, crapping dogs while luxury cars
+++++++are mounted in the yard,
a trailer park on the edge of town
+++++++beyond the boulevard

lined with shuttered stores and shattered lights
+++++++and windswept, soaked debris.
This is the Kingdom meant for you,
+++++++the respite meant for me.

This is the great communion—hobo wine
+++++++left underneath a bridge
a quarter full and waterlogged
+++++++as an abandoned fridge

gapes empty as a new-abandoned tomb,
+++++++shadowy and still.
This is the New Jerusalem,
+++++++the City on the Hill.

Original appearance in The Moth.