Should prayer come easier if this bowl of tea were topped
with brandy? It is an earnest thought,
much like the stripped vines pouring over the eaves
of the garage roof, a fall of dying tendrils delving
once more for summer. Or a warm drink.
They seem to wheeze we think so and egg me
toward the decanter.

In the corner of the porch, a cold spider pends
from a single thread, all but done now, October too much
to bear.
For him, there is no Pentecost.
For me there are dark ghosts humming dead songs, their tongues
as palpable as young snakes, their arms tangible and spread wide,
splayed as though waiting
to be hanged.

What are tongues but vehicles in which
strange words are spoken?
When Alice Maggard leapt from her pew and demanded
our eyes,
our ears struck dumb by the shrill voice of God,
what, in his name, could we do but think ourselves
foreign?
I wanted only, Sister Maggard, to flee to the parking lot
and wallow in the warm smell of gasoline,
sweet fumes from the exhaust a sign of my safety
from your bizarre knowledge, your loud talk
with the awful God.

Ragged as this drape of vines flung over the garage,
I pour only a thimbleful and think how like God
a compromise is.
And though all my young life I was taught
there are no bargains, I find myself in the middle of it offering
moderation
for a sweet place
in the sky.

Alice, dear Alice, you wouldn't know me if roll were called
and my name was at the top. But I remember you
as a frightful person. The woman who leapt.
The woman who convulsed.
The woman who had conversations with air, with the ceiling,
with her hands raised in spasms, screams
from the church like bitch-cats caught in the dark.