Sunday Cockfights

In the pastel blue church
that was once a gas station,
the women fan with hymnals
and sway to hymns. Hosannas

and Amens drift across the highway
to the abandoned trailer lot
where red dust falls and rises
without the sacrament of wind.

There, men, sweating darkly
through white shirts, have locked arms,
and now shove and shout to keep
that make-shift pit inviolate.

 
 
Sunday Cockfights first appeared in Gulf Stream #3 (1990)