For God While Sleeping


Sleeping in fever, I am unfair
To know just who you are:
Hung up like a pig on exhibit,
The delicate wrists,
The beard drooling blood and vinegar;
Hooked to your own weight,
Jolting toward death under your nameplate.

Everyone in this crowd needs a bath.
I am dressed in rags.
The mother wears blue.
You grind your teeth
And with each new breath
Your jaws gape and your diaper sags.
I am not to blame
For all this. I do not know your name.

Skinny man, you are somebody’s fault.
You ride on dark poles
A wooden bird that a trader built
For some fool who felt
That he could make the flight. Now you roll
In your sleep, seasick
On your own breathing, poor old convict.


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For God While Sleeping