THE DOTTED LINES OF A SILENT NIGHT

Empty parking lots are cathedrals,
Every marked space is a confessional booth,
Curb stops like staggered pews,
Halogen lights burning like moth-covered censers                              
Burning holy over the acrylic dotted lines of a silent night.

A cigarette is a sacrament,
I touch my lips to a bottle of seven-dollar cab,
I think of the infant king, incarnated to bleed
In empty parking lots with lost sheep like me,
Staring up from shopping cart mangers swaddled in fast-food napkins
At moths and stars that are supposed to mean something.

Angels hang from darkened grocery store signs
Whispering that I shouldn’t be afraid,
They drop feathers on the asphalt as they roost in giant letters
Assure me that tonight they won’t let me cry alone.

The whole world is dark, still, unmoving, cold.
As I listen to that quiet pounding in my head,
I remember your lips moving against my ear,
Telling me you love me in the glow of our Christmas tree.
I watch the faded lines of the lot swim into an outline of your face,
And I wonder who’s ears your lips are brushing tonight,
Quiet as a mouse.

Hosanna, hosanna, the angels weep over my head.
I just nod quiet as a mouse atop my curb stop pew
And feel the emptiness
Like an incarnation shaped with dotted lines in my lungs.

Julian Porter is a thirty-year-old father of two little creeps, Jack and Luna, and has a short story published in Paper and Ink Literary Zine.