The Sermon

On Monday I went to the nursing home
and watched my mother in the dining hall
braiding the air with her lost fingers.

I left and walked around the block
where a grade school recess poured
hundreds more onto the stage

then I drove down Nez Perce street
past the empty house where
my dead friend Randy lives.

On the way home I stopped at the store
where I was caught shoplifting
a small fresh green salad

On sunday I will go down
to the First Congregational Church
to have this all sorted out
by the man in the black robes
who looks down from his high
mahogany altar with the black book
shedding its darkness upon us
as though it were light.