Evangelical Casserole For Thanksgiving Poem by Erin Lee

you, unworthy critic

I remember you like the rust in the bathtub I never got around to cleaning.

when I was 7 you spent your time
smoking in vintage dens and
locked vans
with little girls choking on closed windows.

you've been trying to get the devil out of me since I was 3 years old

and my daddy found out I'd been attending Sunday School

the day after Havdalah.

if my mother's mother hadn't met you on the rebound, 

2005 would just be a year, 

and Tennessee would have no connotations, 

no associations with 'hatred' and 'Satan'

like invisible boys turning off your Christian radio, 

watching cartoons to cover up the Truth.

your idea of Thanksgiving grace went over like a soiled campaign ad, 

all smiles and handshakes for those in your party, 

poison cocktails for the rest of us.

but my sick father's father was mentioned

so we ate the casserole to digest your authenticity.

it wasn't until the next morning, 

my throat filled with your ash, 

that I overheard you spewing your chain-smoked visions
of Satan
in the form of step grandchildren, 

and of my obedient grandmother,
who was never quite purged of Jew.

you, unworthy prophet, 

to my father's face,
which seems much older now, 

gave speedy death predictions for my father's father,
who was Jesus free, 

(he never quite got through that grief) , 

and you didn't have to tell me to rush on home that November morning,
no, you'd smoked me out years ago.