Inflatable Church

(found for sale on eBay as business opportunity)

Let us swoon before it as it rises!

Shucking its folds, flexing its muscled
walls as it fills with electrified
breath, manmade materials thick
as any skin, smelling of raw vinyl freshly
unboxed, unbreathable. We hold our breath
as the thing unfolds, rises before our eyes

like a forty-seven-foot-long by forty-seven-foot-high
Inflatable Baby Pool. It creaks and crackles
as layers peel away from layers. Run a finger
along the vinyl walls, vinyl steeple,
and it will squeak clean as any sinner
fresh from the confessional.

Here in Inflatable Heaven entrepreneur marries
the divine, resplendent with an Inflatable
Gold Cross, Inflatable Altar, Inflatable Pulpit,
Inflatable Nave, Inflatable Pews, Inflatable Candles lit
in perpetuity, Inflatable Double Door Entry
flanked by a Host of Inflatable Angels, brilliant
stained glass plastic windows airbrushed on —

"Take the church to your congregation," the ad
reads, "perfect for revivals, baptisms, weddings."
The Inflatable Church also makes an idyllic space
to hold a funeral, replete with an extremely light
Inflatable Casket. Inflated with helium
your loved one ascends as they Ascend!

"Get yours today," they proclaim, "for only
thirty-five-thousand-nine-hundred-and-fifty-dollars.
At three-thousand-three-hundred-dollars
a day rental it would
pay for itself in no time".

Fully inflated the church looms,
diminishing the sky,
its pinnacled spires pointing up up up up.
Imagine stepping inside the church,
caressing its Heavenly Inflated Walls,
and with one slash /

bringing the damned thing down.

*Cati Porter is a poet, artist and freelance writer living in Riverside, California. Her poetry has appeared in Sunspinner, Banyan Review, Pomona Valley Review, The Vermilion Literary Project, and Poetry Midwest.