This selection is included in NonBinary Review #13, available here.

This selection is based on this story in Snopes.com

if the church locks its door
the car gets towed
the furnace quits
your boat sinks or crows
steal everything you’ve got
this is the shelter for you

this is where they will hand you a free
christian ponder t-shirt in XXL
whether you wear that size or not

one of the former cheerleaders
will walk at you like she is on a rolling ship
she will wear a neon purple dress
that makes your head spin
whether you’ve been drinking or not
her hands will grab you
by the shirt collar and she will say
I could tell you stories about me now love
that would raise the fuckin hairs
on the back of your neck
and you’ll believe it and you’ll believe it
when she says she once wrote
two bestsellers in a row

and this is where one of the old players
with eyes swimming in sockets of clam juice
will tell you bedtime stories of broken heroes
lost chances
perfect regrets
and how packers fans secretly sell
the kind of maggoty cheese
that tries to eat your brains

sleep here on the fake green grass
beneath a glassy sky filled with fake white stars

all night long you will hear the leftover echoes
of horny people yelling skol

every now and then a bird will die
from flying into the night-colored windowpane

and by morning when you leave
everything in the city will look upside down
the earth like sky
the buildings like hallways
the hungry will look
like they’re rich
and the rich look
like they’re cold

Jeanne Lutz is the author of the chapbook HEARTS AND HARROWS, and her work has appeared in Conduit, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Poetry City, USA, Whistling Shade, and on KAXE radio station.