God

I have a friend who proclaims nothing is in our hands
because it is all in the laps of the gods we cannot see.
I have a grandfather who is convinced a god watches
over us day-by-day and keeps his son safe until the
long awaited moment when they are reunited again.
I have a grandmother who lives by grandfather’s rules,
not through faith but through hope that come the end
of it all he turns out to be right in the face of adversity.
I have a father buried beneath a headstone he did not want
because he never saw or heard the god his father claimed to know.

And I cannot claim to know him either, regardless of my friend’s
proclamations and my grandfather’s insistence that his
prayer’s for me are always answered because I am not
the bastard I need to be, nor am I as large as the life
they think I have behind these eyes so allegedly alabaster.
And it is in irony that I claim to be so cold in isolation as
grandfather truly believes if I clasp my hands in silent prayer
I could never be alone - but talking to myself, or to the walls, does not
constitute being in company; otherwise I would never be alone,
despite failing to utter a single Hail Mary for my spurious smiles.