by James Nicola
If God makes deluges and droughts,
I don’t think I can fathom God.
Is He unbalanced, is He unwell,
cursing with plenty, blessing with less
than enough? How can I, starving, bless
the feast? Alas, I’m stolider than
that, or smarter, or stupider,
to pretend that Nothing is a feast.
And in your absence I cannot pretend.
If God’s The One Who makes you absent,
what the h— is He, that I
should glorify? Pray? I would, sure,
except I don’t dare make a sound
for fear of cursing, for which I’d
be damned, and apart from you forever.
But then you return, and I’m insane
with joy. And no hunger, drought,
or deluge can make me not praise God.
James B. Nicola’s full-length collections include Manhattan Plaza (2014), Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater (2016), Wind in the Cave (2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018), and Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019). His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award.