John Bartell

Del Cain was in Church Today

“Write about me, I gave you your heart.”

Song on the Prairie Wind

Del Cain

 

I walked through 

the hulking doors of

Trinity Church, into a pasture,

prairie grass and sage

tossed in a wind

that will never end,

sitting in the pew

where I always sat,

just close enough to the back

to make a quick escape.

Del in front of me

head bowed in prayer

or perhaps asleep

but, most certainly,

still dead.

A meadowlark alights on the holy font.

The wooden cross lit from behind

hovering above a stone altar,

casting shadows on cattle

in the aisles. 

Chandelier lights in a row like 

fenceposts demarking a pasture

as the congregation

reads a psalm.

Their words, in tandem,

latching on to the next

and sweeping on through the sanctuary 

like a string of fifteen gauge barbed-wire,

one end stapled to a post,

slack wire pulled taut 

with every breath

every syllable

every clasp of the gripper

as the fence line extends.

In the Chisos Mountains Foothills

 

Do you remember the night we sat 

on the roof of the farmhouse Grams left me,

once her diamond,

but now coated in Chihuahuan dust

and the scent of pinyon pines?

We counted satellites 

streaking across the stars,

your hair cast in the wind,

strands of silk on my cheek -

a web I welcomed, one that stuck

when your fingers met mine

and took the darkness from me.

 

I never got to tell you how your spirit tasted,

or why I surrendered so quickly,

or how,

after you left, 

I stood on the roofline,

atop the world,

my cockscomb raised,

my call shattering glasses

on the dinner table inside, set up so nicely 

just for you.

An east coast transplant in Texas, John Bartell enjoys Shiner beer and the Austin music scene, though he hasn’t taken to wearing cowboy boots. He is a past president of the Fort Worth Poetry Society and the DFW Writer’s Workshop. His poems can be found in various journals, including The Orchards Poetry Review, Canyon Voices, The Loch Raven Review, Rat’s Ass Review, Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase X, and Muddy River Poetry Review.