The Waiting
Heaven Is Home
If a body that suffers is done with sin
As Saint Peter said
Then I saw perfection's bones
Barely holding skin
Melting in the bed
The biggest man I knew
Was barely days away from dead
And he said, "Heaven is home"
The third step-son of a seventh son
My mother's only dad
Now lay down, stricken
One desperate lung
And Marlboro mad
Still that man breathed in enough
To be amazed at all he had
And he sang, "Heaven is home"
His last breath he took
He read from the book
It said everybody dies
Now he's two years gone
And I still can look
At tears in my mother's eyes
She says "Son, what matters most
Is the way you wave goodbye
And if Heaven is home"