He came to us every other summer
from the jungles of Brazil,
his gabardine suit gone shiny in the knees
from so much praying.
He came on the hottest Sunday, mid-July,
holding up a spear before our eyes,
the very instrument, we were told,
which impaled a brace of his Baptist colleagues.
The congregation wheezed in unison,
waiting for the slides: the savage women
dandling their breasts on tawny knees,
the men with painted buttocks
dancing in a ring.
The congregation loosened their collars,
mopped their brows, all praying
that the Lord would intervene.
Always, at the end, one saw the chapel:
its white-baked walls, the circle of women
in makeshift bras, the men in shirts.
They were said to be singing a song of Zion.
They were said to be wishing us well in Scranton.