The Prayers of an Atheist
There are some nights and days ahead for us still--
and so our shadows twist, become oak knots
as the days trim off the scraggly sunlight,
the sky shudders over us like a tired eyelid.
The last bits of autumn gather at our feet
as if to weep and wash them of the growing we've done this year.
Stubborn orange may bleat mild protests from the empty handed trees,
but we are left with more and more night
in which to fight the surrounding cold.
In the blue hour, a Mercedes will creep from the parking lot behind my house
puffing out exhaust like a Black & Mild.
Its windows are sunglasses for a car.
I will cringe for the money counting, lipstick smudges,
for the squeal of tires as the car becomes
more shark as it accelerates.
And the gunmetal clouds glide over the city;
they are shaped like the heads of buffalo,
haunting the skyline with their melody.
Without them, it would be easy to forget
that every day, another world is possible.
My mouth moves silently to ask forgiveness
for the moments in which I became a liar this week,
for the pause while I helped to bandage
the self inflicted wounds of of a young woman,
as she wept at being uprooted once again,
for my mother suddenly gasping for air as she falls asleep
as she has done every night for seven years,
for my brother lost in the forest
where the trees wear orange jumpsuits,
for the small children of Gaza who I keep imprisoned
by paying my taxes,
for the good people who don't deserve this,
for the people who push against this,
for love, always, for the love of what this living is.
Wind trembles my legs like a good lover,
shakes in the resonance of bullet holes in swing sets.
Every moment sings itself concave in my fingerprints.
Today, it took me two hours to convince myself that it was worth getting out of bed
and most of the rest was spent weeping into the carpet.
I'm not asking for sympathy.
I am telling you what the air tastes like when you stop believing
in the possibility of a just god.
I cannot waste my days hating the sky
for the way tumors erupt
when every sunrise is so beautiful.
I will not swallow the thick salt of a divine plan
when the tick tock marching away of minutes
would feel so much like the palm of an invisible, enormous bully
pushing against our foreheads
as we swing our puny fists until collapsing.
I cannot hurl the flaming bottle of my sorrow
at the repetition of the sun
and expect it to feel like justice.
If I had faith, I would have given up by now
because I would have someone to blame.
I picked myself up off the floor today
because failing to act
means I am responsible
for all the ugly mouths of guns.
