THE PRINCE OF PEACE IS HERDING SHEEP

No, he’s in west Texas collecting cattle. One by one, he touches their heads and they drop dead. A summer of drought and little tolerance for the hand of God. They fall lightly in the dust as Jesus rides his donkey across creosote flats. Fifteen thousand beasts in three days; the cows cluster around tiny pools, smothering each other with overheated hearts. Too slow to move apart. Jesus wipes his brow and surveys the carnage. Just enough meat on those bones to feed the ghosts rising like smoke from the Horn of Africa. Two million children evaporate, as college football fans rush parking lots for the first tailgate of the season.