"God", Michael Bazzett

for Ada Limon

Look, it’s not that I believe in him. Nor he
in me. We have moved beyond all that.
I just like having someone there in the dark.
Usually we sit in silence, waiting for passing
headlights to glide across the ceiling and knock
stray prayers loose from where they got
stuck on their way out, so many years ago.
It’s almost like finding old piñata candy,
says God, picking one from the floorboards.
He unwraps it, takes a quick taste. Winces.
Nods like he’s just remembered something
for the thousandth, thousandth time.
What is it? I ask. It’s kind of like chewing
tinfoil, he says. All that aching naked hope.