An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given it…

Even if Love squirmed

and groped under my laboratory microscope,

or so much as blinked in my rearview mirror;

even if Grace crawled down my chimney

with a toboggan and gifts and reindeer,

or came stapled and wrapped and dated

and stamped in a fact;

even if God Himself tattooed his name

in cursive across the earth’s atmosphere,

even if He jumped out of my closet and put an end to my fear,

even so: commonsensical, down-to-earth reasoning still stands

to explain the Survivalism growling behind every blushing,

ornamented Love Thing; still stands to expound on

the synaptic brain twitch, trick-of-the-nerves Mechanism

grinding behind every one of the Soulish,

Violets in Springtime,

Five Fallible Senses.

I am, after all, only a man, a man of my times. I need more than signs.

Minneapolis, 2008. Read it in Geez Magazine.