It's a prayer booth that almost looks like a urinal
The voice of the corridor echoed to me
Inside the mansion handed down to me
1920s New Zealand accent
Slowly losing it's Britishness
Slowly gaining it's polymathic twang
It's the kiwi tinker gourmand
They didn't order it like a pizza
They slowly became it like elk to antlers
The spirit came last and was replaced
With hundreds of theories and denials
Here in the prayer booth there are items
From my grandfather's spell in world war 2
An old radio, a map and a magnifying glass
Also a pack of camels and ace glass ashtray
I knew he had to be smoking in the afterlife
Tending his mansion and his garden
feigning organization and feigning humble
while the outside world grew amongst weeds
Not weeds old Eric would pick out
But ones he told in long drawn out jokes
Punchlines opening as seedheads and his laugh
echoing through the mansion
Even though he was still outside
What if a soul was nought else but a gram of certainty
Of those few things that made up a human being
The prayer booth in his mansion always empty
But God himself allows Eric to be present
Even if just in the pre-dawn mind
He speaks to me of great places maybe he'll tag along
I know I must have been an irritation to him years back
Maybe he can finally be that for me
I can see his pout and gestures at the cafetaria table
His red skin exactly signature the ember in his cigarette
I still don't really know how he lost his leg
Someone said it was a train
