I’m beginning to equate God with nothing
but the tedious stammer
of Porky Pig’s bald body popped
through the center of a bass drum, announcing
the end of another Merry Melodies
production. A vacuum
where no one dies until they look down
in midair. Years I’ve spent
writing a sight gag for the failure
of my kidneys, barrel
of a misfiring cannon I stick my head into
over and over. I make choices
I have seen other people make, but I don’t
hope someone will stop me.
In therapy, this impulse is named
survivor’s guilt, but religion says I seek
forgiveness. I spent last night doing cocaine
off my mother’s Christmas china.
The body is a temple, I blurt at the cop in line
at the gas station Blimpie.
He’d denied himself bacon on a turkey melt.
Authoritarian glare, silent language
of law enforcement, meaning we both know
I’m still a little fucked up.
There’s a hollow I carve into myself
where I keep what I know
to be holy. The burden of all flagellates
is that the answer is always God.
God in my sock or in the icebox, God
measured and balanced
on a plate or peaked along a key ridge.
Always patient, always kind. God without
envy who doesn’t boast, God of trust
who gives hope, who will not delight in evil
but rejoice in the truth. If there is
knowledge, it passes.
Keith Kopka is the recipient of the 2019 Tampa Review Prize for his collection of poems, Count Four (University of Tampa Press, 2020). His poetry and criticism have recently appeared in Best New Poets, Mid-American Review, New Ohio Review, The International Journal of the Book, and many others. He is also the author of the critical text, Asking a Shadow to Dance: An Introduction to the Practice of Poetry (GRL 2018) and the recipient of the International Award for Excellence from the Books, Publishing & Libraries Research Network. Currently, he’s an Assistant Professor at Holy Family University in Philadelphia.
