Double Feature

Chris Ellery

September 17, 2023

On Saturday afternoons

their mother dropped the brothers off 

at the old Joy Theater.

Its ratty seats and sticky floors,

its dirty screen flickering in the dark 

with silvery shades

of myth.

With popcorn and soda, 

the boys consumed in utter joy 

the thrill of how the west was won

and lost. 

War paint, wagon trains, flaming arrows, 

scalped settlers, injun-killing cowboys,

the brave Cavalry martyred on their horses, 

gunfights and rough law, 

whiskey, saloon girls, 

greasy cards and derringers, 

railroad tycoons, cattle barons, undertakers,

the town under siege, 

and always

the white-hatted rescue 

of fledgling civilization—

its splintery boardwalk, its muddy street.

On Sunday mornings 

the boys returned to the Joy, 

rented for an hour

to a tiny flock of earnest Christians.

There kind, old Mrs. Rayburn

taught the boys to turn the other cheek, 

to love their enemies, 

to welcome persecution, 

to heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead,

and above all else 

to know

down to the rock bottom of their souls 

that God is Love

and Love is All

in all. 

Chris Ellery is a retired professor of English from Angelo State University, where he taught classes in film criticism and American cinema.  His most recent collection of poems is Canticles of the Body.