Mother sang it like Hallelujah

Your little boy was born in January. I bet you couldn’t tell; your lips weren’t the only thing the ember turned brown.

The edge became your new-found home as your studs kept driving to it. Surely, mother’s line became too familiar; she sang it like hallelujah.

You said the cold never bothered you. That a January birth was better than a July one. That at least in winter, the air could slap some sense into a man before the bottle did.

But I watched your fingers tremble as you lit another cigarette, the filter crushed between teeth that once knew how to smile, how to light up a room without a match, how to twirl with your kids in cheer without the weight of tar and regret.

You lost your wallet in the cemetery.

You told your daughter she was ordinary.

You walked barefoot on glass, but they did little to cut your guilt into capsules that you could swallow.

You used to say a man could outrun his name if he walked fast enough, but I watched yours catch up to you through the hollow clink of an empty bottle against the floor.

The little boy had your eyes. Mother wouldn’t let him near you. He didn’t have the privilege to see ugly before he returned as he came.

He would not know your name. He would not know your face.

Your first prayer was for his funeral.

Mother sang it like Hallelujah

She sang it like Hallelujah

She keeps singing Hallelujah

I can hear Hallelujah

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

This piece is inspired by “The Lumineers — Donna”