As if God had kicked the crutch of belief out from under
the limbs of the wounded. As if our souls were unwanted
weekend guests in the summer beach house of the body.
As if I were still the magician’s pre-pubescent assistant,
waving my skinny arm and wand. I Will Create as I Speak
the Lord once saith, in Aramaic no less-Avra Kahdabra—
distracting us with cape and hat and that sly, cunning grin.
O how I envied His deep voice and gift for misdirection.
And now my astonishment at this morning’s small miracle
when, up early and stumbling at the shore, I saw, as I fell
face down into the shallows, my sins swimming about me
like a school of minnows, no, I mean like my own fingers,
all ten of them, intertwining into a gesture of prayer.
From Wild Gods: The Ecstatic in Contemporary Poetry and Prose (New Rivers Press, 2021), edited by Joel Peckham and Robert Vivian. Copyright © 2021 by Joel Peckham and Robert Vivian. Used with the permission of the author.