A Tightrope Walker Before He Tiptoes Between Skyscrapers

I don’t mean to alarm you but there’s a crowd
gathering outside. All secretly hoping to see you
fall. This is why we slow down
at car wrecks, why felines try to bat life
back into dead mice on our doorsteps.
Just admit it: you love knowing you could misstep
your way to the foot of God. You could have
been normal: sold over-miled cars to giddy teens,
life insurance to well-doing paranoids- but you didn’t.
I don’t blame you. Right now, there are rooms full
of withholding-drunks pulling off calendar pages
waiting to die sober, priests splashing holy water
onto stillborns. I’m sorry I didn’t mean
to get graphic. Your mother is counting her prayer
beads as a hospice nurse is tuning the television
to the news. Now steady your breath. It’s time
for your test. What’s the worst that could happen:
you wake up washing God’s feet with olive oil,
retelling your worst-self’s-favorite-stories,
punctuating each one with Lord, please forgive me.

Header photograph © Mane Hovhannisyan.