Absolution Wax
by Nevada Kerr

The fatal wind she controls gives her an air of self-assurance
But amnesty from her gift of prophesy she can never harness
She breaks her heels kneeling to some holy martyred mother
And in the heatwaves over old graves she cedes her seedless lovers

Rawhide bemoaner driving an unsainted hearse
She unpledges her heart to diesel-loving tourists
Lubricates her skin with the fat of kings to make public all her private sins
But during the summer fry days the sun's relentless death rays
Slip between the asphalt cracks and speedway traps to find her

Hunchback cherub grubber in virgin mary rubber
She promises divinity to every wifeless bungler
She donates fatty tissues, overpriced skin reissues
To make an absolution wax for buffed and brilliant bodies

She wedges into metal feelers on the remnant byways
The smoke of blighted factories strangling her airways
In the city she sings with her lips closed by abscessed rings
Living on beyond the pain banning her disdain

She completes her mercy rounds in gardens underground
Where there's no forgiveness for the widow of a god gone down
Like a tainted starlet for the Christ-bound car wrecked
She removes the cage of torment holding every good thing suspect

Her heart rocked at the truck stops by the smoke stacks on the highway
The green house gases liquefied all her arctic rafts
All her glacial graphs and green world escape maps
But she ran away unmarked in her absolution wax

Written by © Nevada Kerr
22nd July 2001.