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Missive From The Mission District
I really did see the face of God.
I swear I wasn’t imagining it.
It was in that cheap hotel room in San Francisco,
the one with the same spiders from the last time,
the same faded pictures on the wall,
the unchanged sheets and blankets,
the mouse who kept peeping out of His hole.
No, not the mouse. The mouse has moved on.
I didn’t say wow or help,
not even omigod, which would have
been a classic response I’m sure.
I was casual, matter-of-fact,
you know me…there’s God, wonder what He wants.
Actually, His face was staring up at me
out of the sink,
the one that takes so long to empty.
He looked incredibly sorrowful
like he’d been reading the newspapers.
I should have asked Him
where were you when the car
skidded off the highway,
when cancer cells attacked
my father’s last healthy ones.
But I’m no Blake.
I don’t pretend to speak to Him so much
that I have the questions prepared in advance.
I just figured that with those
stuffed and backed up pipes,
His image would be floating around there
in the muck and slop for days, maybe months,
at a time.
I promised to look in on Him
every once in a while,
told Him not to worry,
the room was paid up to the end of the week.
But, they finally got the plumber up here,
and next time I looked. He was gone.
Okay, I’m kidding, it was the mouse,
dead, drowned, and that’s all.
He looked like he was suffering for
the sins of me having to stay there.
That was how I made the connection.
John Grey |
