Sermon

The preacher steps onto the 453
into central, black shoes and slacks,
a thin white check shirt
hanging like a veil off his ribs,
smiling hugely into people's faces,
hand raised, shaking, ready,
he begins to speak.
The words come fast: "Jesus",
"save you", "eternal", "God",
as verses he has rewritten
in the backend of his brain
they stream like bubbles outwards
from his thick, working lips,
that open too wide, as if grace
were about to descend into them.

He has the look of a child
with food stuck in his teeth,
his tongue rolls crazily around
as he pronounces "damnation",
"final judgement" and "iniquity",
the last word mangled slightly
by his African accent comes
with a strange amphibian squeak.
This causes a boy to giggle
and suddenly it seems
the whole weight of the ministry
is on him, with hawk eyes,
with the blood of the Crusades,
the Inquisition, the Salem trials,
and damnation is very close,
is a real and palpable thing
bearing down from above.

The kid shrinks behind his Ribena
and leans toward his mother.
The preacher shifts instantaneously
from thunder to angelface
and he graces us with his last
monumental words, the bus by now
a sea of glum or rolling eyes,
he leaps through the closing doors
like Gabriel off a cliff.