A Month of Poetry: Seven
by thereisnosurvivorsguide
Faith
When I was a child,
I wanted so desperately to
feel the faith
that I saw on TV.
I wanted to sit
around the abundance
link hands
and give thanks
for the overflowing table of food.
Fill up my growing empty.
I wanted my daddy-
any one of my daddies-
to kneel beside my bed with me
and pray for the Lord
to keep me safe at night.
Instead, after Saturday sleep-overs,
I would wait for my friends and their families
on Catholic or Lutheran
church steps, weeping.
Creeping close to the door cracks
trying to absorb Faith.
But the door was closed to me
and the magic never seemed to reach outside.
Later, my mother signed us up
for afterschool bible study
a daycare of sorts.
We prayed, sung, and had snacks,
we inhaled the apple slices
prayed for the worries of children:
food, clothes, shelter, sober parents
but the songs got stuck in my throat
My God is an awesome God, he reigns
was so hard to swallow
as I watched Mrs. Janet
tell the stories of all the felt men.
Abraham sacrificing his son.
Trapped in the Arc with Noah.
Even little David, up against the power,
would soon grow into a man.
A son, a father,
this all powerful male ghost.
The only woman I saw was Mary,
a girl a little older than me.
And her Father must have come
to her in the night too–
they said she didn’t choose sex
but no one could hide her swollen belly
inside the belly, her faith
growing into another
bearded man.
