SHAME IS THE CHORUS

This year’s crop is all huskless corn,

this year’s scrapes never turn to scabs,

this year’s skin is a rope burn tattoo.

Wherever you are, raise champagne

to time passing, this calendar

a voucher for certain celebration.

Down the road, a revival’s Bibles

are hollowed out to hide knives,

and the congregation won’t handle snakes.

Don’t trust that preacher’s promise of cold

bottled water, of giant fans cooling

the crowd and their sweat-veil faces.

Meditate on the tree line in your yard,

wave to the ghosts snagged in branches

like balloons as they watch in judgment.

They do not show weakness,

and in a moment three days

to the left and three nights to the north,

each screams shame

into the wind that slams against our windows,

waking us in the middle of the night.

Robert Krut is the author of three books: The Now Dark Sky, Setting Us All on Fire (SUNY/Codhill Press, 2019), which received the Codhill Poetry Award; This Is the Ocean (Bona Fide Books, 2013), which was awarded the Lanitis Poetry Prize; and The Spider Sermons (BlazeVox, 2009). His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Gulf Coast, Passages North, Blackbird, and many more. He teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Writing Program and College of Creative Studies.