On God's Little Acre

God owns twenty-odd mobile homes
on a sandlot near the highway
where poor people live.

Not many Mexicans these days
but, as always, poor whites.
Single mothers.
Losers.
Jail birds.
Bag whores.
Misfits.
The chronically poor and unemployed.

Everybody tries to live
a halfway decent life
and still have enough to pay the rent.

A little beer.
Diapers for the baby.
A happy meal for the boy.
Cigarettes.
Gasoline.

God has a zero tolerance policy when
it comes to the rent.
He accepts nothing less than the full
amount in advance for the month.
You can't, say, be $65 short
and pay for twenty six days
or even promise to bring the $65 in on payday,
which is only four days from now.
Bring in your rent by 7 PM on the day it's due or
God will have his boys put your ass out.

You'll come home to find the neighbors pilfering
what little you own,
which is piled on the dirt driveway
just outside your padlocked door.

Needless to say,
a lot of praying goes on inside God's office,
which is what used to be the living room
of the house he grew up in at the back of the lot.
Praying and begging and, as they say,
God knows what.

I met God once
after he'd bought a burned out hull of a trailer
and hired some temps
to clean it up enough to rent.
Another hovel for the lowlifes who gather at God's feet
to tithe their pittance,
to pay tribute to their king.
I saw God give some poor sorry son of a bitch hell
for coming up short
and watched him grovel in response
and knew immediately that God likes it infinitely better
when they can't scrape enough together to make the rent.