God
by Michael Bazzett
for Ada Limón
Look, it’s not that I believe in him. Nor he in me. We have moved beyond all that. I just like having someone there in the dark. Usually we sit in silence, waiting for passing headlights to glide across the ceiling and knock stray prayers loose from where they got stuck on their way out, so many years ago. It’s almost like finding old piñata candy, says God, picking one from the floorboards. He unwraps it, takes a quick taste. Winces. Nods like he’s just remembered something for the thousandth, thousandth time. What is it? I ask. It’s kind of like chewing tinfoil, he says. All that aching naked hope.
