Chris Anderson
It’s hard to love you, Lord, on a gray day
driving to a dirty town and entering
a dirty house smelling still of morning bacon,
with two barking dogs, one big, one small,
and a dying woman, who is enormous,
the folds of her flesh pooling out at her sides
as she leans back in her recliner, praying
the Rosary through her yellow teeth,
answering me each bead, Holy Mary,
Mother of God, pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour, in a voice I never
expected: a pure, rich contralto
When I drove to Spokane to see my dad
the smoke from the wildfires
was as acrid and thick as the clouds
the Angry make on the third cornice of Purgatory.
I couldn’t see a thing until I drove away,
back down the gorge and along the river,
where the air was fresh and the leaves
were turning. I will never forgive you,
he said as I was leaving. He was hugging
me in the carport. I could hear
his hearing aid trilling. But I knew
what he meant. Forget you.
When they finally stripped off the tiles
and ripped out the floor, there were big gaps
between the joists and a whole system
of elbows and pipes. It’d always been there,
the water had always been running
through it, all those years as my children
grew and changed and finally left home.
I’d just never thought about it.
In the center was the drain itself, lumpy
and encrusted, misshapen with lime,
like something ancient they’d pulled up,
streaming, from the floor of the sea.
Driving at night on the way to Spokane
I see a stadium in a little town
and the lights of the stadium pouring
into the darkness.
I am passing by.
I know that somewhere in me
there is a great love, and everywhere.
All around me.
I can’t hear them but I know
that everyone is cheering.