Picture a boy,
a smooth stone cupped in his hand—
he’s the boy David, or maybe it’s a gun
flat against his palm, and he’s an archangel
aiming for the darkened windows
of the church. First the blast, then the shattering,
the slap of running feet,
he never turned to see the windows fall,
falling inside solder lines, inside lead lines
unless the caliber was small and only
left a bunghole of white light.
It could have happened that way. That’s why
my father went to Riverside to make repairs
because a saint shattered
a woman kneeling with oils or a man reaching
for the wounds, the five glorious fountains.
Our father took the whole family to the Inland Empire
where groves were laid down in all directions
like the careful quilting of God.
Robber barons built their mansions
and the fields of the Lord were planted in citrus.
Churches reared straight up and were shot
through by boys. We spent our first vacation
at the Sleepy Bear while our father ministered
and over in the bleached water of the pool,
hot dirty light shafting down on our heads.
Years later I went back to Riverside
and met a man who brought me to his house.
He’d been shot in the chest, a large-caliber
weapon, and when he took his shirt off,
his skin was still surprised, an epicenter
and ripples, all of it scar. I wanted
to see the exit wound, but couldn’t ask.
I wanted to see the actual damage,
the way the body took it, the light in the church
when no one is there but the glazier
and his small daughter, a girl not left behind
to throw herself against the flat slap
of water, eyes rimmed red
with bleach, a plume from the steel mill
above our heads, one great chimney
called Bess towering over the blast furnace
and many coking ovens
without names, the leaves of the orange
trees in Fontana already blackened.
They harvested the last grapefruit
during the Second World War, after that
the trees couldn’t give.
To go to Riverside when churches
were stoned and men
were shattered. I imagine my father
on scaffolding, his careful hands,
the way the three women were tender
taking down the crucified Christ
and their tenderness made the soldiers afraid.