“I’ve Seen Jesus”
by Chris Joyner

In the suture of railroads dreaming mountain and Main Street
In fry cook hairnets, cologne of coffee and syrup
In oilrigs dunking into dark earth
In buttonholes, the candor of clavicles
In pocketknives and church pews
In broken brooms thirsting for hard hands
In halos of rain haunting the lake seiche
In tangled daisy chains of highway, stalls carved with verse
In mouthfuls of lemon, cuttlefish, woodsmoke
In wheelless axels of motor homes
In eyeholes of fox carcasses and dead birds and screen doors
In Louisiana
In brushfires
In lotto numbers
In rusted coin slots of payphones
In cottonmouths nestled in the cool sand of crawl spaces
In nucleotides
In storm shutters and porch swings found unclaimed in fields of cow dung
In autumn hostage to cicada song and hydrant spray
In the once-promise of Pangea
In coronas of dusk behind abandoned factories
In baskets of bloodworms, the rockfish not reeled
In busted gut hernias of warehouse workers
In hole-in-the-wall, lunch hour bourbon and cokes
In the glossololia of strips malls and kiosk trinkets
In the snow-buried cradle of ribs, anticipating spring
In the prostitute’s splayed stocking legs
In mortar and pestles full of primrose, goldenrod, cat’s claw
In convenience stores
In cubic zirconia
In rainbows of boat fuel coalesced with dock water
In spider veins and elder stars
In exit signs
In the red shadow behind
my eyelids