for Chance Castro
As a kid, I wondered if God took his coffee black
and at least four times a day. My father did. And I
wonder, what’s the God-equivalent to catching
your father using the ring of a mug to tattoo landscape
designs on your mother’s table cloth? I wondered if God
had a front yard. I wondered if anyone has ever dropped
eaves on God, the way I did and overheard my father tell
my mother they were going to lose the house at the end
of the month. Does God know who Bret “Hitman” Hart is?
Because that’s the closest thing I knew of a superhero, and
at night, I’d throw on my dollar store sunglasses wrapped in
tin foil, the closest thing I had to mirrored shades, and wrung
the necks of my pillows. I wondered if God would chant
with the crowd as they called for the sharpshooter. When
I left nasty boy confounded on the floor, I wondered
if God had retirement and could borrow against it
to keep the house and landscape plans in full swing. I
understood superheroes to have the ability to identify
the weak spots on monsters, and what substance would
cripple evil. My father said snapdragons depend on
honeybees to make their red and yellow tongues grow.