He is One,
while I smile to myself
and fear the little spiritual squeegee man,
cheap-leather clad Galilean,
his arms flailing in mad, sacred forms.
He blesses pedestrians and Cadillacs alike
as waves of exhaust rise up, swell,
and enshroud him.
And He is One,
while I drive slowly past, content,
as though the steel gears now turn more smoothly,
the racing engine running not on Valvoline 3.0
but the soft insinuation of the Holy Ghost,
the One Who Is Three reducing friction
and wear on my Detroit soul.
And He is One,
while I am afraid to even sound my horn,
lest I summon from the deserts
Joshua’s Jericho wrath, casting down the Filly*
and the Eastern Bank,
the whisper of angels exploding brick and cement
and toppling the Smoke-shop Indian chief.
And He is One,
while I think of her blue Magdalene eyes,
how we met in the mall bookstore.
She dropped Hemingway
and I knelt before her, smiling and afraid.
And He is One
carrying those four fate spikes in his back pocket,
spilling witches and joke shops from ruined wrists
and asphalt miles from wounded feet.
He is One,
miming that slow Golgothan waltz in rush-hour traffic–
He is One, while I am Legion.
(1994)
*Picadilly Filly, a defunct watering hole by the college
