on reconsidering my faith, in the shower, after being harassed @ work

Grace Gilbert

 
 

            today i am peeling
                     a clementine

         in my shower

                     I am trying on austerity
                     for size

God the one on my radio

   probing for casual
donations

  from the people

         even he has talking points
                     a logic self

what harm would it do to pretend
         I am thinking

Again

that reliable holy
character 

         scrupulous radio
         fog

   I am scraping orange chalk
           from my nailbeds

I am recounting my exhaustion
            from last  night        when

my shift manager
         Richard

said there are things i wish I could say to you
         but it wouldn’t be appropriate
here

         the word here 
                     stuck
in the espresso machine

         along with the faulty cog
         from corporate

 o such  Grief
         in our capital

after that 

         I guess now    
given the chance

for a different membrane 

         I think God
or Richard

         would find me
                     anyway

         if there’s one thing I’ve learned about
                     men it’s their devotion 

 you could hold any wet
         palmful of self

and they’d still find a bad way
to love it

 
 
 
 
 

Grace Gilbert's recent poetics & lyric essays can be found in The Adroit Journal, Ninth Letter, the minnesota review, plain china, Anomaly Literary Journal, Pretty Owl Poetry, Maudlin House, Twyckenham Notes, Vox Viola, storm of blue press, Sweet Literary Magazine, tilde, and the Gandy Dancer among others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a finalist in the Princemere Poetry Prize as well as the Adroit Prizes. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Pittsburgh where she consumes unholy amounts of cheese and dumplings.