Normally a poem

by Chris Wheeler

normally

the lines cascade from me

like bullet casings.

normally

the weight of it

squeezes out the words

like juice from a berry.

but today

I tighten my fist,

gripping what little

air is left in it. today

I sharpen knives.

today I hate someone

I have never met. today

I dig graves in the garden.

today I wonder why

it's always children. today

I cup my hands protectively

around sweet potato slips,

alive as that child who was

my daughter's age leaving

for school in the morning,

unique as the children of God

in the Tops grocery aisle,

innocent as that child

before she met her pastor,

innocent as she is even now

after he touched her, and then

the cloudburst overhead rumbles,

slaps the soil with fat fingers

until the clay in my hands melts

into glue, and the sky is

pouring forth missives

that I will never scrape from my fingers.

today I cried

when she said it:

here, when everything holy

fails, still

God is here — even here.

I could not see it,

but she can,

and I choose to believe her.