In the Beginning

I.

To the God in the shop window: in the beginning,
your eyes followed our tucked down chins, faces
welcoming feet on asphalt, twin rhythms,
not a church in sight, only high-rise steeples.
Teach us how your disciples walked, follow the bob of our heads,
our hands stretched out for balance,
nowhere to crouch or bend or twist out of line.
Blind, pale, we teach ourselves
in the hours between dawn and morning. These hours
are the moist clean spaces between fingers, counted
and worked over.
Single-file we march in the rain
red hoods following bare toes following
invisible prophets, cardboard mock-ups.

To God in the shop window: in the beginning,
your sad profile recruiting us, we only longed
for your eyes to trace our faces.
Out of grasp, behind glass,
you never wavered.

As soldiers, we fail to recognize the enemy,
as soldiers we march endless circles, never seeing
the whites of their eyes.

II.

Lying prone
one of us counts backwards from a thousand
as clouds form scabbards for crosses.
Fingers tap restlessly, endlessly,
against thighs and flat bellies,
visceral morse code,
not a blink in response.
We have exhausted the kneel:
ripped knees, raw palms, calluses,
bruises the color of weary
irises, brown and green
and blue.

Your stare now mocks: our deaf general,
our mute, framed portrait, the non-magician,
the God
in the shop window-gentle face, dry and sterile,
your motions nonexistent, flawless mouth closed
while ours catch rain.