Adversaries

He held his hands like plastic    -
his vestments the finer
calling of his trade,
vocation as modern strummer
of Nature's laws
Engineer in brief    -
wine glass in hand
bestowing the more salient points
of mawkish disbelief with
cigarette to numb the spine.
The Reverend
looked down on fire,
caught papryus smoke in the bellows
of his chest,
made laundry of
the Plumber's intellect    -
tore savage parchment
from the soft cheesecutter's
contemporary breath.