“Hello,” she says so politely. “My name is Hannah and I just ran away from God and his sheep.”

Welcome the pilgrims with a pellet gun and a lava lamp kiss
See Hannah cut her finger with a pair of scissors whilst she creates a paper turkey from a paper plate and construction paper the colors of autumn dust
See the missiles rain from the sky
each tattooed with a patriotic emblem stating “Goodbye… Have a nice day.”
See Hannah paste her paper turkey on her bedroom mirror
animated and alive
it wiggles its plastic bubble eyes, the pupils tremble
See Hannah crawl beneath the covers on the eve of holiday glee
see her dream of firestorms and bullets and starving on TV
See the maestro carve the cooked bird
the steam from the flesh rises above the well-adorned table
leaves a mist on the golden goblets of blood wine
See Hannah stare out the picture window
as the chaos of family voices clutter her mind
See the soldiers all falling down in a line
gassed by children coughing up the poisons
as they simply attempt to make paper turkeys with scissors and glue and not a clue from their forefathers how to breathe with peace.

Hannah stares at the church people marching in one by one
pale and whiskered faces flushed with trouble
crowns of cowboy hats and blindness pouring from their souls
and as Hannah passes the begging plate, she spits in it
futility running from her mouth
the scent of heaven polished in her hair
she looks up at Tik Tok Christ
and wonders if they’ll nail her up there too
Hannah crouches down low and slips out the row
whispers to her mum
“I have to go to the bathroom …”
She breaks out the doors
to greet the steely blue sky
the wind whipping bone finger treetops
curled leaves choking the streets and dancing
the semi-truck scatters them like a hurricane as it rumbles right on by
and Hannah walked on down the road
To the school where they teach the blind children
such a huge enormous house of sooty brick and brawl
long luscious hills of now dormant grass rolling and rolling on down
paths of gray serpentine their way
across the landscape and the clouds
Hannah climbs over the black iron fence
rips her dress on a spike
tumbles to a patch of moss and rock
She lifts herself up
wipes herself off
and comes face to face with a blind boy staring at nothing but dark empty space.
“Hello,” she says so politely. “My name is Hannah and I just ran away from God and his sheep.”
The little blind boy smiles at the sound of her voice
Reaches out his hands to touch her
Feels the fringes of her dress
The softness of her arm right where it comes out of her sleeve.
“I’m blind, but I can see you,” he says to her
“I’m blind but I can feel you,” he mentions to her
And he kisses her on her cold, wind-chapped cheek.

The little blind boy took her down to the boiler room
He led the way by touch
It was dark and cold and smelled so old
Hannah crinkled her nose and coughed
“What are we doing here?” she asked
“Nothing… Everything is a mystery to me because I’m blind. Just stay close to me.”
Hannah found a book tucked beneath a red blanket in the corner.
“What is this?” she asked as she stuck the stuff out in front of her.
“I don’t know, I can’t see… see… ” and he felt around like a blind boy imitating a blind man lost in the confines of his own darkened theater.
“I’ll read to you,” Hannah said. And she led him close to the wall, beneath a slit of window against the ground.
And they sat side by side, their backs pressed against the stone of the wall. Hannah flipped pages and read the words aloud.
And with a final breath upon the final page, she read: THE END –
AND THE MISSILES CAME STREAKING ACROSS THE SKY
MAKING THE END A SARCASTIC REALITY.

Hannah stared at the paper turkey pressed against her mirror
The dust was falling from her hair
The dried blood flaked from her mouth
Her once pretty dress torn worse and soiled now
She walked out into the hallway
Dimly lit and smoky
She turned the corner
Entered the dining room
Saw the pillars of stone bones propped in their chairs
Bony fingers clutching the golden goblets of blood
A hole in the window
Operating a view to the burning scene
The head of the blind boy spun like a record amongst the claws of the mangrove cathedrals floating through the world
She touched her mouth to feel her breath
The eye of the needle had been fed
She was alive
but the world was dead.