Resurrected in a Cafe

Legs crossed in a velvet arm chair

with God in my lap - 

His legacy lies open like a butterfly,

its spine balancing on my knee.

Two ancient kings

sit across from me,

facing each other in a frozen fight;

they command cold, clay bodies

across a checkered tabletop,

its surface engraved with jagged hearts:

the scars of stalwart soldiers.

A metallic cacophony

poisons my prayer for peace - 

gossip conspires with grinding beans,

the iPod pumps remixed rhymes

into the gutter of my ear.

I blow the steam from my Sumatran coffee - 

a frustrated sigh over the ceramic lip - 

the warring chessmen bend in the heated breeze

as creamy cyclones stir in the black abyss.

It spills and I bolt out of my seat - 

my kneecap splinters,

the butterfly scatters,

His pages leap into the sweltering air -

truth strikes hard

like lightning in a desert storm.

His words soar above

the sharp fragments of doubt;

I follow His spirit over the ruins,

cutting the bottoms of my bare feet.

A risen soldier -

guided by His unseen hand - 

I walk boldly in suffering

to carve my heart's broken form

onto His highest table:

the battlefield of a war already won.