By Greg McDonald

I wrote a psalm for Jesus while I was sleeping.
It turns out differences are settled with cross
words in the new world, that rules are measured

in miles like horses, then discarded, that night
is the breaking of bread, the welter of birds it affords,
the cove where Christ gorges on clumps of flotsam

and tidewrack – O Lord, sweep the sea with thy skirt
and increase my bewilderment! An open window lets in
the ocean, I can hold my breath for hours and sift through

the sea’s squalor – the telephone floating near the toaster,
the iron pulling a bag of oranges under, our silverware
glinting like sardines, my brothers like two glass floats

asleep on the rocks, my mother grappling with ghost nets,
my sister swimming in the wrong direction following
the light down as if our lives depended on her.

Purchase A Length of Night Work at Finishing Line Press.