though I hardly ever thought about the little brother
whose whole life spanned only a few hours

My sister, Judy, and I believed God would punish us
for anything less than total devotion

“God doesn't welcome lukewarms into His House,”
the preacher at the First Assembly of God in Grand Rapids

warned in a voice more Yahweh than Christ
and all us lukewarms stared at our shoes

waiting to be snatched from the pews and dragged
down into the fiery pit of hell and damnation

Disaster struck outside me as a boy
though it struck and struck often

sometimes so close I could feel the hair
prickle on the back of my neck

like the sudden drop in air pressure, the sick stillness
you feel in your stomach before the tornado hits

Life was miracle followed by tragedy
that's just the way it was

God was an insensitive brute
impersonal as an earthquake or a flashflood or a lightning strike

I never saw much compassion in Him
We weren't even supposed to pray for ourselves

So what do you do with all this unexpressed love and anger
between Father and Son and all this history that leaves out

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