Whenever the Spirit Moves (Two Poems)

Drowning in the Baptismal

I baptize you…

I saw nothing
in the rich baptismal,
with the pastor’s rough
right hand over
my 15-year-old face—
his fingers extended
like giant bratwurst.
The water swirled
beneath my weight,
tickling and tugging
at every corridor of my body,
rising up around me.

in the name of the Father…

I felt my lungs constrict
and my head
Clunk against the porcelain bottom.

and of the Son…

There was no glory,
no dove to twitter
and spiral down
like a divine church bulletin.
No great light to sever
the ceiling, to dangle
the harp of David.

and of the Holy Ghost…

And in the blasted cinema
of noise and applause
I remembered being small,
sitting in the pew,
following the complex grains
of wood and seeing airplanes
and warships and rockets
in their strained lines and knots,
with a Pentecostal preacher
pounding the pulpit two times.
Two times for the second commandment.
Two times to stress ‘in vain.’


Two Boys


In the gravel parking lot
of Christian Fellowship Church,
Benton, KY, one wee boy stands,

shuddering to lift a crate. He props
it up with a piece of pipe he found
bobbing out of the creek.

To the pipe he knots a ragged yellow rope
and ties the rope to his wrist. I’m setting a trap
for God, he says.

Meanwhile, in a cardboard shanty in Acuña, Mexico,
a gaunt boy is napping. A strong gale
comes knocking, and he is buried

beneath plywood and mud, held captive
by the spell of a jealous God.