after Lucille Clifton
final three lines taken from Lucille Clifton’s “far memory”

i did not intend to leave
the bible in the rain.
may i remind the omniscient
that i apologized to the sky
trembling in judgment,
that i dried the cover
and ironed its curling plastic
with the very lines that held
me in sopping bliss?
and lord, how can you
blame me when you created her
a storm all her own? edenic
siren swaying my oars
to prophetic shores—
her praise, rage, sorrow
seeped into me
with your flood,

calling me back to the stones of this world
and my own whispered
hosanna.