CANTICLE
by Riley Bounds 

Canticle.

At the tail end of the earth
there’s some landfill
of songs and screams
that were
all carried
in the jaws
of strays
and buried where
our relative
inclinations,
ennui,
meet the cosmic
and sift into
the aurora
ebb,
and it’s still lost
on me
whether I’ll
remember
from the pirouetting
particles
the glass
I’ve crushed
underfoot
or the futility
of every
levity,
cadenza,
but I doubt
I’ll mind
since all strays
die alone
anyway.

Altar Call.

God pulls over
on the roadside
to dump her
in the bar ditch.
She lies
wilted,
the outer
rot,
the inner
lie,
she was elect for
a night; He
illumined her
only for
a time,
all the just
forsaken.
Satan crosses
from the cornfield
and absence,
and he hands God
a twenty,
and sacrifice burns
dim in taillights
as God
goes
to get gas
while the
Negative One
crouches over her,
working at
her belt.

About the Author:

Riley Bounds was raised in Alex, Oklahoma. He earned a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Oklahoma and is currently pursuing an MA in Philosophy from Talbot School of Theology. He plans to do doctoral work in theology. He resides in La Mirada, California.