Lot, As Told By Benny The Browne’s Point Wino by Robert Lashley

Touch the water, and taste your hand.
Touch my sea and feel its bile.
Tend the surface of this holy water
that I wrecked before I burned.
His salt and mine, his last command
I could not stride to follow.
A condiment of his rage, I drowned my sorrow
before he could throw me in the fire.

Tell him that I know the mirrors
that broke upon the father’s gaze.
Tell him that I know the fires
were not of man but sage
that would not tamp down for daughters
that would not tamp mother and child reunions
his endless coming markers.
Before the word made divining sense.
Now, all sense is that bar.

Tell him, tell him of that third day.
Tell him how I left the brimstone.
Tell him of the rumbling ground
and my last flight far from Damascus.
Tell him of the one who heard my cry
and raised me above his flames
(my howl upended his order).
Tell him why I'm here, a human shadow
to keep orthodoxies stable.
Horns flare and cities will vanish
so I have my ripple by this water.