At The Dinner Table With God And My Father

What happens when God sits down for dinner?

Do you set the table for two, three or four?

What happens if you only have a loaf of bread

and a one-pound block of butter,

do you ask him to perform a miracle?

What do you do when God puts his hands on the table,

fingers flay, bull and lamb belly up, pink-red palms

asking for forgiveness?

What happens to forgiveness when God is your father

and you discover he’s just a man with two hands—

can a bull and a lamb be still on the tines of a fork?

Or are they votive candles burning on the altar of your plate?

Those paraffin hands, waxwing feathers in prayer.

How else can hope look

if not like a spoon to your lips, a sparrow

with new wings

beating air from the comfort of its perch?

This is how we move forward,

             you unclasp your hands and surrender flight

                          before you pick up the butter knife.