Two Starving Saint Francises of Assisi in Two Separate Caves

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

He never promised he would care for me.

I never promised him.  I never thought

Of that.  A man is man.  We think we see

Him as he is.  We seldom see him fraught

With genes that Jesus gave him long before

The world’s foundation, before the book

Of Job.  We think a man inside his core

Sits settled like a Sinai, not brook

The swells and shrinks, that follows no firm course.

We want to think he holds a saint within

His haired up chest.  We want to think no coarse

Beelzebub will cripple ribs with sin.

  God chose the rib to form a helpmeet, Eve,

    And since that time man cannot find reprieve.

©  Phillip Whidden