NO PLACE TO LAY HIS HEAD

may he not play a game even to the gender of the pronoun we use to describe him ... or the voice he uses to tell us his say ... sometimes another's sometimes our own ... but never once does he tell who he is ... at least never to me ... perhaps to you ... or perhaps together we belong to a befogged generation with grimy balls of cotton in our ears since we were children and never took them out not even to wash them once ... a world of particulars we say that's all that has what we give it ... call it existential import ... no universals only a world of particulars ... a hot shower but no warmth ... a smile a nudge but no affection ... ah groping in the dark and squeezing and something soft and something firm to hold but no love ... what a silly thing these abstract universals are ... who needs knowledge when I simply know what to do ... or community or power or glory when I can pause my program to go fix a drink and come back and pick it up where I left off ... and most of all who has the time or need to pray ... have we no safety net no medical no drugs or what do we pay taxes for ... detail by detail we're supposed to connect the dots ... what wonder then we have no visits supernal or divine when the dots together make a blank