Lake Geneva

You are crouched before the fire

In a state park by the highway

And through the heavy pine trees

Ten-ton trucks go groaning by

Like the screams of your Aunt Barbara

Who went crazy in the '70's

Wrote poems to Jimmy Carter

But forgot to feed her kids

But, it's the first time you're together

Since he got out of the hospital

Raccoons in the darkness

Drag off your hot dog buns

But, you're happy just to lie there

In your plastic tent from Wal-Mart

Like sticks and fallen dead leaves

To feed the fire of the world

Because which is more important

To comfort an old woman

Or see visions of the heavens

In the stumps of fallen trees?

Albert Einstein trembled

When he saw that time was water

Seeping through the rafters

To put out this burning world

Next morning you're at Waffle House

Toast and eggs and hash browns

Truckers chain-smoke Camels

Over plastic cups of juice

And you remember how he cried

When they strapped him to the stretcher

Convinced his arms were burning

With electricity from heaven

You remember how he told you

That black holes were like Jesus

And the crucifix was a battery

That filled the air with fire