The new church

before they came to pull out the trees we were letting them die—saw palms that reminded us of some other people we’d rather not be in touch with all of us have given the tape a pull smeared the pot with clay ate from the same bowl together like dogs all of us have taken a shower all of us are ready to leave the jade cuttings on the street and start over wear each other’s clothes and live in the same vicinity as when we hated comedy as much as bad sex now we have grown into it sprinkle its dust over the fresh corpses like colored pencil shavings change out our bodies and accept the serrated quality of our interactions narrating the amusement of growing old together as it is with the Chinese elms and power lines alternating like simulacra into oblivion