My people throw the name of God
out like candy, not in vain
but in the way you say the name
of someone you love again and again.
Every greeting a prayer & every prayer a greeting:
God deliver you safely. God give you health.
God grant you success. Peace & blessings & mercy of God
be upon you. Our throats turn into minarets,
the minarets our throats. God is closer to you
than your jugular vein. When we talk to God,
we put a finger to our throats and hear the pulse.
When we talk to our dictator, he puts a boot
to our necks. When I talk to my father, the house
is empty. I talk to my father and I understand
why Moses turned prophet for another god.
I talk to my father and I understand fascism.
Fatherhood looks like godhood in the nations
and houses of pharaohs. Daughterhood
looks like prophethood when you hit the peak of puberty
like the peak of Mount Sinai. When your body
grows into new borders & all your pleas to this once infallible being
collapse into a new kind of faith like the Red Sea
collapsing onto Pharoah and his army. Into a prayer on the tip
of the tongue, inarticulate but earnest incantation—God. God. God?