Please the God-Caller within your spine:
Bow to it, twist life into it with wide hips creaking.
Please the God-Caller and maybe the God-Caller will please you,
Old crow with jowled neck and wattled prayers for youth and night
To come release you from the day.
Please the God-Caller with green sparkles hung from
Black branches on a blue blue sky and
The God-Caller may call back like a
Red-winged blackbird battling the fetch of a
Prairie thunderstorm over a roiling lake.
The God-Caller keeps you ashore and brings you
Osprey high against the widening spiral of clouds
Too beautiful to be dangerous.
You lie beneath the funnel, back flat on the hot dock,
And call down the wind.
You don’t think it’s God until later,
Alone in the yellow chair, fumbling for an
Amen that crumbles on your
Sun-chapped lips and chokes
Your hope with ash.
