Religion is routine,
Bringing gods into your apartment.
Their shadow forms dance on the walls
While you sweep and mop,
While you clean urine off the toilet seat.
These gods follow you and chatter
Like children, they play tricks on you.
They are good, troublesome company
Knocking pens off the desk,
Fidgeting with costume jewelry left out.
They pull the cat’s tail,
They make the trash smell sour.
These gods understand
the helpless; the absurd and ridiculous.
They vaporize and inhabit us
Joyfully. They are
cryptic, and spindly-handsome
they eat mood, and lick dreams.
They are frightened at the movies
And weep at funerals, for
Only they know how final
Death is. Gods don’t have voices,
But make creature-sounds.
They are at home always,
Travelers constant, thieving, and
Generous with stories.
They fly, they manipulate physics.
Gods know the similarities between
Science and poems and necessity,
They don’t need to read, or think,
Because their bodies are their mind’s eye.
Gods ransack confidence, add disease,
Pockmark our abilities, so that we see
Our selves. They are tiresome,
they make us brood. We benefit slowly,
with bitterness in our mouths.
But eventually, rescinding our
slavery to pretense, we appreciate
gods. They are not solemn: their noise
is constant, their fingers reflecting ours,
playing skittish, brazen, haunting games.
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