A CANDLE IN WALMART

 I don't know in which aisle laythe paraffin candles with pictures of saintsin the supermarket of my dreams witha parking lot full of reflected cloudsor mirages y milagrosin full glory & trumpery: O shinyAmerica of asphalt & candy flufftoo many banks & the banks of riversI have known: Willamette, Columbia,St. Josephcriss-crossing the midwestern townwhere I spent an Easter afternoonexplaining to my Jewish daughter the storyof the Best Jew of All Time, Jesus& we ate frozen yogurt& beignets & pretended we weresomewhere else: a Walmart or a dealershipof luxury sedans or at the site of"the largest vacuum cleaner in Michiana"but I thought of the water table& the buried shaved bits of stone taperedto take skin to bone because out hereeven the fast-food joints have a different glowthe libraries different books & walkingup the sidewalk near the creekthe tributary of St. Joe's, E. leaned down &studied an animal bone & I leaned down& scooped her up unready to havea discussion of what's left behind what'sflayed what's tabled until next yearnow three years hence I've fenced it off& put away the picture booksstuck here struck in the Mexican sodapopaisle God Bless America & yesI'll take the St. Christopher.____Anthony Robinson lives in rural Oregon surrounded by gun-owners and other kinds of Republicans. Different poems appear in The Awl, The Iowa Review, and Verse. 

Photo by Matthew Rutledge