The Skin of Meaning. Keith Flynn

and mathematicians spar with

      sediment for the symmetrical spoils,

      though sometimes the occasional flash

      flood will claim a tourist or two.

      In Heaven, to whom does one confess?

      And when does Death show his face?

      Perhaps there the water is made of silk,

      and the substance washing around you

      is called Grace. Seven white coroner’s

      sheets covered seven unarmed black

      men, who were killed by white police

      this week in America, and each of the

      deceased’s mother or wife believed

      their beloved was in a Gucci stall being

      fitted for wings. Every policemen thinks,

      there but for the Grace of God go I.

      Does the Governor of Heaven care about

      the color of the murderers? Is there a

      great slide, shaped like a bell curve, that

      drops the unworthy straight into Hell?

      Or streets paved with gold, diamond

      Jacob’s Ladders, leading the freshly

      christened cherubs on escalators into

      the segregated first class seats?

      On Earth as it is in Heaven, says the

      solemn congregation, where the lion

      lives in harmony with the lamb.

      Awake for five straight days, eating

      speed and drinking tequila, Mickey

      Newbury swore to me that he’d

      seen Jesus, and how did he know?

      Had to be Him, said Mickey, He had

      on an eggshell robe with the letters JC

      monogrammed on the breast pocket.

      When 4-year-old Colton Burpo told his

      father, Pastor Todd, that he had visited

      Heaven while having his appendix

      removed, he had sat in JC’s lap and

      summoned angels with halos riding

      rainbow horses and singing his favorite

      song, dressed to the nines, with fashionable

      robes and purple sashes, and best of all,

      no lines for the rollercoasters. Trayvon

      Martin’s parents said their slain son was

      in Heaven with God, and was wearing his

      hoodie. Plato’s assertions put the temporal

      body in peril, but the immortal soul could

      eventually have a conversation with anyone.

      The pagans thought the soul just stewed,

      until the Captain of the New Groove Ship

      descended from Heaven and united every

      saved soul, dead or alive, under one cool

      banner, and cast out old Scratch, and put

      out that Lake of Fire, just as soon as the

      wicked were tossed in, and then it was

      fireworks and roasted hot dogs for all

      eternity. But what if this is it? This one

      wild life, on a single blue pebble, caught

      in a vast webbing of dimensions? I take

      no pleasure in the capricious exclusion

      of any known Heaven. I spent my child-

      hood asking forgiveness of a father who

      did not exist, and could not listen, a myth

      in the settled universe whose conjuring

      only adds to the random strangeness

      of humans, now clearly standing in the

      margins of their own demise, faced with

      the unyielding despair and certainty that

      this galaxy must end in ruin, with our

      species scattered among the celestial

      debris. I cannot fault any being that

      seeks a balm in some perfect afterlife’s

      Wonderland, though the nature of their

      prosperity gospel means one man’s

      salvation is achieved upon the broken

      back of his neighbor. The soul’s habitation,

      should it exist, leads to the imagination’s

      redemptive force. We are what we make,

      and the making is love, and love is the

      mystery that sustains us. Any tacit

      acknowledgement of religion’s cheap

      tricks opens the vistas of the unknown.

      The higher we climb, the world lays

      wider in our scope. The more I know,

      the less certain I am, and my self-

      deception grows commensurate with

      my ignorance. What we have is here,

      where we are is now, in Time’s despicable,

      multi-tentacled clutches, in the habitat

      of dance and feathers, building our

      headdress and staking our territory,

      lending our love’s disguise to the march.

PRAYER

      Red spruce trees

      that yield

      their wood

      for the violins

      made in

      Cremona Italy

      grow in the same

      valley and have

      done so since the

      1500s including

      the Stradivarius

      tables and arms

      that produce

      the sweetest sounds

      known to man

      650 or so

      instruments

      worth millions

      played by students

      in worship of a tone

      they cannot

      reproduce

      any other way

      A single man

      stands

      fingering the strings

      in the Dolemites

      among

      the reverent limbs

      of the lovely spruce

      making a song

      that