Ellis Purdie
Lewis Walker in the Church
I do not know what you believed
about God, but I know your nights
in the bell tower had to feel holy,
even if surveying barn owls meant
taking notes on death, the trap door
raining mouse skulls like a blessing
onto your head with each day’s lift.
I wonder if on a Sunday, early AM,
you ever fell asleep there, awakened
by organ tubes warming for service,
and if you lay still, trying to recall
whether you had seen or dreamed
the bat, wings wilted with capture,
clasped between beak and dentary,
if you then snatched your ledger
and rifled the pages to confirm
your own witness before gathering
camera and words and trying to slip
out before being met by the grinning,
barrel-chested gent in a suit and tie,
bidding the owl man to the sanctuary.
Or maybe you nodded to a layman
like me who wishes no one spoke
in church, who recognized devotion
in your tired eyes, likewise wary
of small talk’s tendency to disquiet,
who figured if the birds did not lead
you to God, a sermon would fail also.
What Is Left to Do
My grandfather’s razor
was the old type, handle
faceted, silver diamonds
running its abrupt length.
It felt good in my hand
when I visited, always
there in the same drawer
in that bathroom long
like a hallway between
one bedroom and another.
His wife, my grandmother,
must have been the one
who replaced and warmed
the blades at the tap, lathered
his whiskered face in those
years stricken by stroke
and heart attack, who stroked
clean paths through froth
and stubble to keep him
from bleeding, an ordering
in the way we try for order
as bodies wane, pills shut
inside planners for weekly
doses, the carpet runner
bridging through living
and dining rooms, giving
his shuffle more purchase.
And while denied car keys,
he was allowed to retrieve
his .22. Feeble, he was not
yet infirm, clear in thoughts
if not in voice, and coyote
loping on the lot, his need
to guard his calves found him
again. He took up his rifle,
round in the chamber, braced
the back door, placed the gun
on the back of a kitchen chair,
aimed using open sights, fired.
His wife was unsure he had
managed a kill-shot, telling
my father, He said he did,
but she had not gone to look,
so my father took a walk.
I think of my grandfather
watching his son past the black
scrollwork barring the glass
storm door as he searched
for carcass, a slow grin into one
cheek when he saw his stop
and study fifty yards away.
Maybe he waited in his chair
in the living room, on the other
side of the house, listening for
my father’s return. I wonder
if he heard his boy, his hearing
surely muffled but my father’s
voice awe-loud as he confirmed
the bullet hole placed cleanly
in the skull, all pride at daddy’s
work. I wonder if afterward he
ever held that rifle again, if he
took it down sometimes, made
sure it was not loaded, and placed
the stock against his inner arm.
I wonder if the latch and assembly
were oiled enough to leave scent
on his fingers. I wonder if when he
squeezed a fist around the trigger,
there was any assurance at all
in the empty click into his palm.
BIO
Ellis Purdie graduated from The Center for Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi. Previous work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reformed Journal, jmww, San Pedro River Review, Puerto Del Sol, Talking River Review and Cottonwood. He lives with his family in east Texas, where he is often looking for wildlife.