Trauma as Religion 

I can believe in a God 

who set the snooker cloth, 

broke with a bang of blue cue ball 

to watch spheres kiss and cannon. 

And I can get behind a God 

who made the cloth from forest, dropped 

oceans into pockets, racked black space 

as auditorium. 

My God’s no referee nor player. 

Only humans garden. 

Only characters are carpenters. 

Trees were never nature’s pews. 

Jesus is man-made news. 

That’s why religions are all true. 

Between billiards, free will’s  

friction is specific fiction. 

God’s gift is many avenues 

and the happenstance to choose. 

What does this have to do – ? 

Green baize is laid by crimson 

carpet – a red thread of trauma 

splinters you, ancient in ways new. 

Yet good book bloodstreams criss –  

worship a whole story not its twists! – 

into truth’s fabric sea of detail.