by Catherine Zickgraf
For the raw throats of souls in Hell,
I swallow waterfalls from the faucet
till I’m satisfied.
Daddy tells bedtime stories to warn me
of the silver fire writhing around the unfaithful,
about what’s awaiting me in death,
how the Rich Man, his mouth dry as dust,
once begged Abraham
for a drop water on the tip of his finger—
for I’m in agony here in this fire.
But Father Abraham
denied the thirsty man that small relief
while holding his own children
to his chest in death’s cool twilight
across the canyon from the unholy.
And the great Father of nations
called out to the Rich man:
My child, he said, your life was good,
so you will suffer dead.
Sheol was eternity’s waiting room, says Daddy,
opening the Bible to the book of Luke.
There, everyone who died before Christ
waited for the Resurrection—
their souls separated from their corpses
which froze motionless in their graves.
And when that day came, Daddy explained:
Christ arose from the dead.
Then Abrah