There are a certain number of souls
who make it to Heaven. The rest go
to the moon and pick their asses,

until the hole is big enough for
Oral Roberts to walk through
on crooked legs. A grandmother

picking her own pocket aware of the
old tale of what happens when
the devil doesn't want you either

and tosses you a quarter or a dawn moon,
a blister, where he himself had perched
the night, like the man who

laid a ten dollar bill on Mother's belly
above my unformed ear.
The number vermiculates seductively.

From an evangelist, a pimp's kiss corkscrews
into my still forming skull.
I'm on my way; my half-strong heart starts.