Jim Zola

Jesus Saves

The Indian market
and the gun shop
share a wall,
as if each were waiting
for the other
to explain itself.

Beyond the last houses,
the fields begin,
plowed under
for whatever comes next.

On the poles,
the signs

JESUS SAVES.

Someone
climbed there.

Perhaps he worked
after midnight,
hammer in one hand,
sign in the other,
stopping whenever
a car approached,
slipping back
into darkness.

I imagine him
moving
from pole to pole,
leaving behind
the same promise
again and again.

Waiting
for the sentence
to outlive
the man
who nailed it there.