Camp Meetin’

There in the tented heat, time reversed,
The outside world barred,
The derangement built to a fevered pitch
The congregants, starchly noosed,
Desperate for some release.

The sentence far from fair must
Somehow be atoned for;
So confession, even if false –
Any lie to allay the torture.
And the thought that justifies the lie:

There must be some guilt;
For even if the penalty’s too harsh,
A feller wouldn’t be in such a fix
If he hadn’t done something wrong.
So some expiation is due.

Slipping off the riser, out a back flap
Enfolded in the robe of Barabbas,
And later, all the foreswearing forgotten,
The hoisting begun again in earnest,
The surplice will be stained anew.

And from the sodden corner belched,
A-man.