...was the son of a preacher man.

Charlie dragged me along
to a lot of his Born Again functions
when I was a child too young to say No.
Playing catch in the yard
during weekend visitation
was not to be expected; "revivals",
"retreats", "seminars", "conferences"
and many other synonyms
for "Holy Roller nonsense"
were. I saw people "speak in tongues"
and pretend to pass out
when the traveling magicians
would lay their annointed hands
upon the sinners' heads.
In retrospect it was disgusting--
the farce of all farces
based on insecurity.

It seemed each guest speaker
each "minister"
(and I'll refrain from further
quotation marks to avoid redundancy
though you can assume they
are implied)
had some gimmick to set
him apart from the last prophet
or apostle to roll through town:
a new mantra for weak souls
to live by, a fresh-pressed pinstripe suit
or a direly important word from the Man Upstairs.

But it dawned on me today
some ten years since
I've set foot in a church
for anything other than
a secular tradition
that all of those men
had one thing in common:

breath so bad it
would've raised Lazarus.