The Skeptic’s Prayer
Dear Space who provides incorruptibility
to the bodies of saints; who takes on myriad
forms from fire to a thickly-uddered ox;
whose agéd representative, listing to one side,
parades in a bubble-domed bullet-proof
Pope-mobile; who journeys with us to the Moon
and with our instruments to Uranus; who
leads us into battle against our enemies
and guides our smart bombs toward infidels;
who sleeps in our holy sepulchers;
who geniies-forth when his name is called
by two or three; who makes phantom limbs
to ache and leaves us relics to cure infertility;
who cracks open calcified hearts;
who turns purple loosestrife loose
and wafts puffs of dandelion;
who coats the swan’s down with lanolin;
who sculpts the snow and casts the thief
into oblivion; who brings fishermen back
to port and the prodigal to his knees;
let us see, O Space, that fountain of acumen
inside this seeming-whimsical sequence
of events that so swill our concerns and
sensations, we suspect nothing of value persists––
unless and perhaps (alas perhaps!)––sharpened
against that whetstone you gave us, doubt.
Third Coast, Winner, Poetry Prize (selected by David Rivard)
Western Michigan University, Fall 2009