Selling Faith

We drive away from the prairie sun. Her fiery hair
blows in the slipstream and I realize she's beautiful.
It's just myself, my seventeen-year-old lover,
a drop-top Lincoln and a trunk full of Bibles,
blasting down a two-lane asphalt ribbon.

The next faceless town is like the last faceless town:
Nowhere, Kansas; population: Who cares.
Tractors park on the downtown streets and the smell
of cornfields and livestock is in the air.
Fertile land for a sales team like us.

First stop is a motel. Fred and Maude's, or
Ethel's Dew Drop Inn...doesn't matter, they all have
little flowers on the wall, a bolted-down tv,
a sink, a phonebook, and a frumpy desk clerk
who raises an eyebrow at the two strangers.

Down to business. every house is the same: faded,
weatherbeaten siding, shutters and farm-wife.
Kitchens have either pigs, cows or sunflowers on the wall.
I wear a suit but not an expensive one, and the girl
wears a calico sundress that shifts gently in the breeze.

I claim to be the salesman, but she does the selling.
Her faith shines on her face when she talks of The Lord
in a way mine never can...she convinces our marks
that They Really Are Good Bibles...acid-free paper,
high-cotton-content...Worth the Price In Every Way.

On a good day, we even sell one or two subscriptions
to the Trinity Study Series of books -- a hard-bound
book delivered Right To Your Door every month for a year.
She doesn't have to know that I made it up, and that
the money goes straight into my pocket.

We've been together since Ohio.  Or Iowa...same difference.
Cute redheaded girls hitch-hiking by a wheat field
ALWAYS trust a clean-shaven Bible salesman.
Fed up with high-school, overbearing mommy and daddy,
the usual.  Teen angst puts them in the Lincoln for me.

In the morning's sweet-smelling dew, Jesus is her saviour.
Ask her in the hazy afternoon sun, and her faith is a pillar.
Ask her at night, in a cheap hotel room, and her answer
is a passionate, husky-whispered "yes."
Sooner or later I'll get tired of her, but not yet.

I'm in the business of selling faith, and business is good.
I roll where the wind blows me, trade their money for my books
and roll on again.  I live day-to-day in the Bible Belt.
Just myself, my seventeen-year-old lover,
my drop-top Lincoln and a trunk full of Bibles.
          --7/29/05