Consternation With Bowed Head

Father God, I come before you once again, supplicant as a field mouse,

to ask you, Father God, what the fuck you’re doing up there.

I’ll admit, Father God, humbly as I know how – it’s looking rough down here.

I know your ways are mysterious & your will is good, but I’m a little lost.

The seasons haven’t been coming like they’re supposed to, Father God. It is the

beginning of November; far too many trees have retained their green glory

& I don’t know if that’s climate change or gentrification & how much of either is my fault.

The other day, there was some shit called a nor’easter, which I learned means cold-ass hurricane,

Father God, & today I have sweated through all three layers of cotton. Isn’t Easter your thing?

I don’t know, feels like bad branding. Feels like you might have lost some direction.

Feels like shit hasn’t been the same since I stopped seeing ring pops at the dollar store.

Feels like we’ve been losing battles ever since we lost Whitney Houston.

They’re putting raisins in potato salad now, Father God. If that ain’t the devil, then surely

the gates of Hell must at least be cracked. The people in charge had a summit

on climate change & threw coins into a fountain for good luck.

Good luck, Father God? I can’t name all the chump change wishes

I’m still waiting to come true: universal health care, the end of capitalism, death to all

the rats in Brooklyn. It’s been me against nature since I got here, Father God.

Squirrels are squaring up on me in the park; I almost curb-stomped a raccoon that jumped

out of a trash bag. I’m not one to judge, but don’t you feel embarrassed, Father God?

Don’t you look at this world & feel dirty? When you came to us as a babe, swaddled & stank &

scaring the shit out of shepherds, didn’t Mama Mary ever teach you to pick up after yourself?

Ain’t she teach you to clean the messes you make? Sounds like poor parenting,

Father God. Maybe that’s where you get it from. I get to the end

of prayer & leave with all the questions I arrived with. Maybe

all my grievances go straight to voicemail. Maybe all that waits

for us is a great big nothing. Maybe that was always the plan.

Maybe you’ll fill me in when I get to heaven. Maybe I won’t.

Resurrection Day

The story goes: On the third day,

God said, “sike!” & the stone sidestepped

the tomb in the dead of morning

or: Jesus went down on a Friday afternoon

and by Monday snatched back His living as

a bandit does the temple’s gold

or: as my uncle tells it, Lazarus dreamt dirt

& four days later the Lord said “Boy, stop

playing, get the fuck up” and decided

He wanted to show him how it was done. The

story goes: Abraham trusted God enough to

raise a knife to his son and his devotion

caught in the Lord’s throat as the ram-

in the bramble. The story goes:

for 89 seconds, we paused our grace

over Easter dinner while the earth

made its breathing known. Fearful

of being raptured on an empty stomach,

I asked Jesus if he could wait to roll

back the stone and the adults laughed,

watching the lampshade sway over

the salt & pepper chicken, waiting

for a trumpet to blare or a voice to call

us home or, at the very least, for a dish

to crash and shatter. The story goes: 4

people died as Jesus conquered death

and that summer I gave my life to Christ.

It seems to me faith functions best when God

has something to prove. The saints had it easy.

Who wouldn’t believe a fleece bone-dry

despite a downpour? A bush burning

and unashed? Miracle is just the word

for the correction of what has already

gone wrong. All of God’s best mercies - remember -

came after the disaster had happened: Technicolor

promise only after the world was drowned.

Rach, Shach, & Benny saved finally

in the flames of the furnace. Exodus

of the Israelites after decades

of bondage, their deliverance a ruined city. A

boy convinced by a quake 200 miles away

there may be a God to blame. Who was to say

I was not already miraculous?

A dead thing still breathing.

A tomb with nothing to show for it.