Kathi Wolfe

God Calls

God speaks in Her own voice,
raspy from cigarettes
and tequilla shots.


“I hear you’re feeling down,
She says, “You want to lie, 
under the bedcovers and drown.
One more teacher shot,
another six-year-old
with a gun in their hands.
You can’t stand 
the sound
when the gun goes off.”


God sighs, tucks her top
into her pants. Her face
has crows feet. Eons
of disease, war – poverty –
will do that to you –
even if You’re God.

“I watched a fish trapped
in plastic die last night,”
She says, “You gotta have
a thick hide. Or it becomes
too much. I’m used to
schools of fish dying.
But that one fish really
got to me.”

God wipes away a tear,
quietly, curses polluters,
for a long minute fumes
against the outrages
of Her children. But, She 
doesn’t create a scene.
That’s not Her jam.

“Maybe this is all a dream,”
God says, “from which we’ll
soon be awake.”
Or, She adds, shutting Her eyes,
“this is our long tortured sleep.”

"God Calls", by Kathi Wolfe. Copyright, 2024: Kathi Wolfe

Kathi Wolfe, who has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, is the 2024 winer of the William Meredith Poetry Book Award. Her most recent poetry collection is The Porpoise In The Pink Alcove.

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