Faithful, endquote
God is faithful,
endquote, says the wall
of a Southern church
as we drive past,
and I catch a glimpse of that
pastor’s (and his painter’s)
light-brown haired male God,
who sets down the handset
with a click and turns to His wife
who drops a pill bottle
back into her pocket.
There is a burden
on this faithful man’s
shoulders, and a noose around his neck,
at which he tugs, the blue-grey
striped tie that matches the checks
he writes to pay the bills and
he does so with such calm that
we cannot doubt that He is Strong
and Loving. So loving, this
short-haired goateed man-God,
that he turns the knob
ever so quietly,
as he leaves - for don’t they
all need
Him, so?
Those long-legged girls
on corners and the top heavy
ones teetering on stools bear witness
to his love. Their lipstick is proof of His
benevolence, His ever-flowing
bounty, the salvation in his touch.
That other one - the
redhead, in the red apartment downtown
of whom he never speaks unless
it is to the chime tinkle clink of
ice in a glass above the Holy Smoke
of an All-Ameican Marlboro -
well, there’s that one,
too, to whom
He is
Faithful.
God
is faithful, endquote.
And so He is, no
doubt, this man. After all,
he returns, turns off the
headlights, and pulls into the garage
and He is even up earliest,
coffee-muggled and hair-part gelled.
He does not complain
nor does He burden
His children with too many
smiles. His shoes shine and He pays
the bills - and the whores - and
He is
faithful.
