MY FATHER’S FAMILY SERMON

First published in Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry & Prose (Columbia University, New York, NY: 1986)

MY FATHER’S FAMILY SERMON

                        “Here I am.”

                                    –Exodus, 3:4

like a clock with clippers

tithing jungles of camellia

buds, sunday’s pink ice I used

to ask for after church

after me sneezing through

the hymn as serious as

him home excoriating hedges

excommunicating the bird

house, my carrots too

through the capped teeth

of the mower singing

tales of louisiana swamp

moccasins and keeping

your head down preaching

you’ll never get out, you’re

everything sacred to us sundays

metal man, lighting our incinerator

where mom leaves her dead bushes