Tidewater / Parousia – Tiresias Tobin-Priest

May 30, 2026

When you came into the house,
breathing murder, and saying
that the end of all things was here,
roaches hovered in the hallway –
the buzz was marshy, hot.
We had been through hell, or something like it,
when we rode through the coal piers
and the soot-choked housing projects
to the bright-enameled sea –
I felt the blood bubble in my gut, sop my bread,
hurt my tongue with oil – I clutched my belly
to hold it all in. On the other side
I saw a man of West African
or Afro-Caribbean descent, selling meats
on the sidewalk in a cotton shirt and hat.
His white Ford on the corner – doors open
for the heat – I couldn’t blame him, but as we passed
I thought the second coming was at hand.
If not in a gross or corporeal sense – regardless,
I had seen the lake of fire burning at the font,
felt his humid judgment rising from the peaty swamp.