airpods aren’t loud enough on their loudest settings to cover angry hymns, 

so I’m taking them to court, where– Mama wished she fought Papa and where Papa wished he wished away his lust for the unholy, court where–  Mama said they would be if Papa didn’t pull his shit together, court where– I wished I saw the inside and wished I could sit on those fancy wooden benches and watch their fights unfold in my best suit, just so we could look a little more put together for the jury of whom they tried to hush

but Mama never went to court.

     Mama thinks– “divorce is a sign you’re giving into the devil’s temptation” 

    and it’s best not to press on the church's-unspoken-but-clearly-spoken-rules

anyone who does is just as faithless as the first– 

treating wedding rings as good-gone trash, 

as a dull stone in the road that’s popped so many tires that the road’s gone dead 

and become overgrown with scratched up diamonds detached from their hellbent prongs

the road gate locked Papa out when he tried to break in, 

  he lit matches through the metals and bent butter knives to their ends

  he coerced men to cut through the stringy wire with ten bills behind his back

  he had his eye on velvet stands– one empty to which he presumed, for him. 

Mama always caught him there,

  if he didn’t get home from work at exactly five–

  “‘s that damn manwhore… Did he ever come ‘ome?”

  and speeds down unpaved roads and back, 

  usually with Papa in passenger with his suit shirt stained 

  in cheap purple kisses of a lipstick that I’ve come to know, 

  isn’t Mama’s.

I tug on Mama’s home-sewn nightgown when Papa isn’t home by five–

  surrounded by floor-homed food-drive groceries and Mama’s

  wine glasses, shattered by up-all-night curses that were promised

  to end by ten

 Mama says– “Papa’s down by the road, I know.”

and prepares dinner of her favorite bowls while she drinks her

favorite wine in Papa’s favorite beer glass and with his favorite 

 china bowls, she pours our barley. she slips off her apron as she 

 goes to sit at our three seater table,

it’s then I notice her hands clasping for grace, with her ring finger bare.