Offering
       

The stupid mercy of flesh, how softly the dog
drops the dead mouse
                                  at door's threshold, the dish
believers set money in
                                  at church should be collection bowl
not plate + I fall asleep trying to forget arguments
and my faith
in them, I like the knife and fork
of dispute too much, you say I say potato and I say
what the fuck are you talking about, yesterday
                                          the table's edge
met my leg in a forced embrace + the bruise is now
a spread of 6am violet, I shouted
                                          at the table's wood
you were better when you were trees which may be true but
so much other than the very present is so hard
to prove, perhaps
to the table I was better when I
was in another room, or watching where I was going,
perhaps in two weeks
                                    I'll realize I'm a better man
with a smear of blue on the upper peninsula
of my left thigh, I believe
                                every kiss from my wife
is evidence of a greater power that wants to teach
and eventually forgive me
                                which must be among
the many things death is,
                                a slate-wiping as one looks
back and sees everything one was wrong about and
how little any of it mattered.

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Copyright © 2014 Weston Cutter All rights reserved
from Green Mountains Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission