Old hymns

I Come To The Garden Alone

It pisses me off a little

nearly twenty years later

a cassette tape from under the front seat

of the pastor’s white Cadillac Seville

was the best he could do

when you consider

all the Southern Baptists in Orlando

who could sing on key

in cream three piece suits

with nothing better to do

on a rainy Saturday morning.

You lay still

we squirmed in our seats

while they cued up the song

fast forward

then rewind

see sawing fore and aft

the way you once

shoehorned your Bayliner into berth.

Late afternoon sun 
ladles molten light

into the corduroy mold

of the Boyce’s garden 

soil soaked dark with spilled shadows

mine throwing up a hand

to the back of an elongated neck

alive and crawling

with the ghost of you singing

that old gospel hymn.