If I say, yes I do believe
St. Anthony found my keys, why can’t you
Believe me? Not that he found them but even
That I believe it. But you are a rational
Woman, you say, though I know to you
That’s an oxymoron, like “cruel kindness.”
Yes, my head is peopled with saints,
They are clearer than God. Here is Francis
Shaking the wolf’s paw, sealing the deal.
I ask him to watch out for my pets. I don’t
Go much for St. Sebastian, stuck full of arrows
But I do respect him. Mother Teresa, sure,
Despite the nasty biography. At the center
Of it all is God, but the center of anything
Is hard to get to. He is the circle
Whose center is everywhere and whose
Circumference is nowhere, but it might as well
Be the other way round, you just have to
Believe it, beyond belief. But saints you can touch.
Janet McCann is a Texas crone poet who has been publishing hither and yon for more than fifty years.
© 2016, Janet McCann
Halfway Down the Stairs 