From Two-Step Devil, which will be published next month by Grove Press.

The Prophet stood on his porch, taking in the landscape. The soft earth was shooting up green everywhere he looked. Purple blossoms furred the redbuds along his driveway; here and there beneath them were sprays of yellow forsythia. Soon the cherries would be out. At the far edge of his field a high-up breeze swayed the tips of the pines.

A fine afternoon! He would drive down to the junkyard to look for the saw blade he needed to finish his Ezekiel machine. The machine was a…