RELIGION Poem: ESCAPED THEIR REALMS, by CJ Huntington

Lady Capital sings her lilting lullaby
softened by the low hum of the engine
and the light pollution in the parking lot off the highway.
Her arm straining to uphold white supremacy
Keeping a finger to her lips
Slowly methodically and
very effectively
pointing ours at each other and
weeding out the ones that
could be trouble.
Lady Capital gave me a bottle when I was nineteen and I
haven’t been able to put it down since.

I seek the gatekeeper.
Up in his kingdom of repenters having died too young from
diseases they couldn’t afford to have treated.
Clamoring over each other
Counting rosary beads in
frantic uneasy Spanish
uno dos tres
Uno, dos, tres.
I seek the man who
calms him with the
touch of his hand
who weeds out the unworthy
the man formerly known as Simon
the man who got the headrush
the man who became the bedrock of the place that
taught me nothing more than [crushing guilt and] a fear of sex
I seek the denier.
He comes to me,
brandishing his stigmata
his seasoned white flag,
and I

lay him out flat.
He was never on our side.
He’s been fucking the lady the entire time,
even when she was
just a girl.

Lucifer and God have
escaped their realms.
They loom about in
well lit parking lots
off of highways and they’ll
shoot the shit with you at your
local mechanics.
They cloak themselves well
but it’s sinister,
and you can see it in their eyes.
They sneak into hospital waiting rooms
They’re actually quite cordial with each other.
Every morning I wake up and my
crucifix is facing a different direction,
and my father coughs until he’s
hacked Them all out.
And they linger,
in your medicine chest,
the backseat of your car,
the space you’ve hollowed out behind the drywall.
Always cordial
always playing cat and mouse.
The wise are still building
churches,
temples,
traps.
The paranoid are having alternating
exorcisms and
seances in their living rooms.

My long descent is a
trek through fiberglass.
Barefoot,
scantily clad,
and I do feel joy for the
Catholic immigrant women.
The gatekeeper does not bruise,
nor does he lay a hand back,
and I have no interest in
inciting a mob.
I don’t have a list.
I have their names memorized.
I say to the women,

“Uno Para Ahora y once Para levar.”