LORE
LORE
A faith healer carved his name into that tree.
It was a few days after a young boy was killed by a snake.
He had been promised it was drained of its venom.
The faith healer took it hard.
Been on the fence the weeks before
about whether or not this was the true path.
His calling.
He’d seen others with the holy ghost.
True salesmen.
But to him, well…
there were just so many beautiful women in this world.
So when the boy began to convulse
and foam up around the mouth
All the man could see,
was every stray doubt he’d ever had
every crack in his commitment.
The boy’s parents sued the church of course
And would have sure sued the faith healer too
if he hadn’t disappeared.
(Some say dead, others: down south, wandering)
Only sign he left before he vanished
was on that tree
with a little poem about Christ underneath
an apology
that I can no longer remember.
My dad told me the whole story
every time we came here
to throw a ball or ride a bike
And every time I acted like I’d never heard it
because I liked the way his voice fit the words
and his eyes got wide when he told of the convulsions
like he’d been there.
The city took the tree last week,
took all the trees up out of the entire park.
A foreign bug had got to ‘em.
It was out of their hands.
Three flat bed cranes and two teams of union men.
Nothing but a giant hole now
where the sun comes spilling over
and some orange cones put around it
so no one falls in.