Preacher Man
Terrie Relf

It was early Sunday, around 7am, and I was downtown waiting for a bus--late as usual--and this well-dressed man came over to me, this man in a suit carrying a briefcase and wearing a smile.

He pulled out a black book and said, "I want to talk to you about God."

I said, "No thank you."

Still smiling, he replied, "You mean you're not on your way to church?"

And I say, "No, I don't go to church."

But this is what I should have said:

"I go to poetry, on my knees, take the word in my mouth, press my tongue against fecund flesh, extend my arms, embrace angels as they descend.

I touch them all...then watch their ascent up Jacob's Ladder, star ships hovering, brilliant light, burst of flame, then a return to a galaxy far from here. I never see them again, but that's all right, because I carry their seed."

And then the man with the black book wearing a suit, no longer smiling, just looks at me and says, "Is that so?"