To Walk on Water

Faith is an act of lying supine,

and motionless, torso yielded, 

bare skin cold in a blue and white room 

of soft voices tittering about

bare skin recoiling from the idea

of a surgeon with a scalpel in hand.

When a man is carried away against his will, 

hands flail and grab whatever are about, 

my fingers reach for and wrap around 

the door jambs of unsurrendered problems.

I am Isaac, elbows bound, bewildered 

by the sight of a dagger overhead

I am Peter, my toe touches the water 

and the water gives way, the cold 

of a laughing sea teasing forefoot 

as I pierce the surface gingerly 

searching for a floor to tread on.
I am Moses and worse, if the rock 

is not a geyser in a nervous second, 

I will strike it ten times and more.

Though this faith is feeble, like a weed

that peeps from a crack in the concrete,

weed it still is, frail but not fragile,

I will tend to it, and nourish it 

until it is a prickly carpet,
until I can heave larger sighs,

until I can see, with eyes closed tight,
the hand staying the hand of Abraham,
until I can ignore the hubbub
of wars and virus news, condone
the bright light of television,

sleep even, like at the barber’s,

sleep even with a razor beneath my chin 

scraping the days of worrying away
Until I learn to walk on water.