When I hear that God’s out on bail
I think “Maybe I should give Them a call.”
We were close once, me and God—childhood
best friends. And, as those do, when we grew up,
we grew away.
The last time we saw each other was hazy, blurred
by tear gas on opposite sides of a city’s hasty cement barricade.
Still, They understand me in a way no one else can. They know
how each rural part of my lungs was formed:
They remember clinging to the ponderosa pine in our yard,
how when we looked out along the branch, there was a great horned owl,
almost the size of my eight-year-old body, and They remember
the shiver of recognition,—this bird is also alive.
They remember the taste of wild strawberries, how we crawled
through a meadow on our bellies with my mom,
licking the stains of sugared sunlight off our fingers.
They remember opening the door when a family showed up one night
while an ICE raid bled across town, how we set up the spare bedroom
and built a cushion fort whispering,—neighbors protect each other.
They remember jumping out my bedroom window, how we’d sneak out
to lie on the tiled roof, watching the Milky Way seep across the sky.
And They remember the middle school fights no one asked me to finish,
how desperate we both were to be needed, and how They stood by
as a witness, or maybe as an accomplice,—
though now it’s unclear whose.
I remember how God was formed, too: Lonely
enough to create a whole universe of joy, none of it Their own.
I hadn’t remembered God in a while, until I got a message
from our remaining mutual friends—the water ouzel, a flying fish,
and Junior Pastor Mel—a link to God’s mutual aid fund,
to get Them out of jail. I sent a yellow snail shell and twelve dollars.
I didn’t ask the charge.
When I hear that God’s out on bail, I think
“Maybe I should give Them a call.” And
“I wonder if They’re still engaged to the Super PAC director,
or if that missionary ever convinced Them to get a passport.”
I think, “Maybe They haven’t heard yet about the work I’m doing,
or what people call me now, or about paleovalleys—
how ancient ghost rivers haunt the earth.”
I think “Maybe They don’t care,–about paleovalleys. Or,
about knowing my name.” I don’t think if we met for the first time today
we’d choose each other. Yet, I still want to call:
our childhood ghosts breathe each other’s air.
So, when They get out on bail, I can’t help but call
the God who was once my best friend
to wish Them a kinder future.
My lungs snag on the hope
They wish the same for me.
Originally printed for the 11/22/24 LGBTQ+ Community Poetry Night at Gallery One, hosted by Taneum Bambrick with Kittitas County Pride & Central Washington University.
