SERMON, NOW ENCRYPTED

After passing through the box
that churns our text into scrambled digit strings—
the veil that separates us from our secrets
as indented, magnetic on all our hard drives
and Zip disks, we have found our way unto
the bottom of the stack. People, consider this
an instruction unto you to go home and clean
your blenders, clear your Internet Explorer caches,
and expel the browser cookies like a sickness
into the majesty of the shredder or the trash.
We do not need to keep these things close to us;
they are not our names nor are they addresses
through which light might find its way to us.

There is no halfway house back from sin.

There will be no grinning in the crowd.

There is not a land beyond this one when
the screen has cleared and our lives have been
lifted away like a spider net is from a set of ferns,
unfurling.

Stanch your laughter and the bloodflow from your cuts.

What we need here is a tourniquet
to stop the daily intake of information
or Calcium in the form of milk.

Give away your U.S.R.D.A..

What we need is to reduce the accidental deaths
of too-long stowaways on transatlantic flights.

Let us think of the parable of the man
who tried to hide himself in the recession
into which the landing gear of the Airbus A320
leaving Amsterdam for New York was meant to close.

Let us consider the shape of the constellations we have made
among the stars.

There will be no more coughing.

There will be buy one get one free in the ever-after.

There will be galaxies collapsing for everyone who’s present          
at the cleanup from the after-party, after-prom, and after-after
celebration.

Let us take no for an answer only this one time.

Let us dispose of all
our husbands’ collective aftershave in the toilet or in the sink.

Let us grieve for those who have left us for warmer cultures
or for other, younger partners.

Let us grieve for the pretenders to the throne, those other balls
of paint or twine or rubber bands or anything that can be wound,
those thousand Paul Bunyans dotting the Midwest,
strung with sadness, strung with stories.

Let us grieve for those whose passwords are their pets’
or maiden names, or other easily-guessed items such as words
from the dictionary.