Religion

 Mary (is that Mary?)  Some Saint is keeping watch over the porch, on the alter of iced tea and Star Wars Monopoly. Less mocking than a pink flamingo might be, and less serious than religion mocking real life. And possibly more fun than either... except where were the people, leaving that big pitcher out there to condense on the Monopoly? Out of the frame lay a broom half-standing, tossed onto a chair, like maybe they'd been in a hurry to clean something up, clean up the porch for the Holy Game ritual. Across the street a cat watched through the window screen in another porch empty of people, two shrines dissected by street traffic.

 In front of my house, Steph's bike sits right at the bottom of St Thomas Aquinas. Showing respect, praying for safety that no more assholes tip and run on the street. Covering itself in reverence. Even that purple tree is bowing. The tip of my car noses slowly in line, waiting for its turn to move into the sacred parking spot.

And here the height of tall things in the sky reverses, where the street lamp towers above like it might shine a spotlight, an interrogation, a reverse inquisition on the church steeple, and there at the bottom, most lowly and useless, the t.v. tower cowers most spindly ugly and alien.