splintered saints 
laced with dentene words 
all pearly white
Like the gates made 
of the bones of slain fae
in the conquest nobody talks about 
in bibles, beloved

but really they're just pocket protectors:
drivers of us snake-folk,
catchers of miraculous stray bullets,
and the low fruit of cherries picked
held up on high-- 
higher even than the lichens
that broke the sacred rocks 
upon which now your church sits
nourished in gold flake, 
and silent blood

forever and ever 
amen

and what a choking pyre 
this farce of a life 
has become. 

my ashes, sulphurous insult
on the nostrils of my sons 
as they water the crops
as they water the promises
of greener pastures 

it's still my bones their plowblade strikes
of alien make, and model 
chipping away at each planting 

my remains tilled into the soil
tumbling into the mouths of the survivors