Worn Jeans and Acrid Flannels

Worn Jeans and Acrid Flannels

You miss the meaning like you miss the
beauty right before your eyes when a man
in worn jeans
and acrid flannels
decides to sing before the choir begins.
You don’t like the tune, do you? You’ve
never heard it before.
You don’t care for his toes barely tapping on
the newly laid carpet for the band?
You used to call them hobos,
and then drifters,
and the homeless,
but now they are houseless. Even inside your
sacred space
you’ll force him back outside after the final amen.

Or sooner if the light falls on his forehead to reveal
the tattoo of a horned being, a goat, a devil, a simple
young buck. But the horns are red, and hooves are cloven
and the doors may soon be closed and locked from the
inside once
he
exits without ceremony.

For five minutes he had never felt so free. He was baptized,
he was holy-ghost-filled, he was speaking in tongues, he was
prophesying, he was catechized, he was confirmed, he tasted the
eucharist before it was served. He never had no demons, he
never had any possessions at all. He just walked in, walked right
up past the kneeling benches and sang because he had the time.
Then the band tuned up, the choir hummed, and someone touched
the crust of his elbow
and escorted down. He sat bewildered and besmirched,
also sweaty and free; he sang every day after that for a week

On the street, behind the stairs, on his stained bedroll, where

Angels gather, listening in concentric circles for his morning song.