I stopped sculping after my Everest of a nose. Many wonderings of my ‘Is’ or ‘MEs’ smutch words, not clay. Plying visitors with questions flowing out of prior questions. Fragile explorations of the ball of yarn tangle of fallback thoughts and feelings. Fracking the mind’s wheelhouse patterns before they harden . . .

Pecking like salt marsh gulls
on Long Island where, I,
newly minted preacher,
stopped to harangue grass
before my first–-and last—
sermon in a tiny church
“what can we learn after
seeing Jesus walk on water?
When Peter saw, he flung
himself out of his boat—
began walking toward
Jesus—then terrified,
sank over his head . . .
like we often do,
trying our best
to follow Jesus.” . .
my wannabe preacher’s
voice parting high grass—
to reveal the bobbing
of a pure white gull,
tearing off beak-fulls
of a dead rat floating i
n the marsh. . . Later
in the pulpit, dunked
like Saint Peter by Amens
shouted by those few gathered,
I realized praise puffed me
into a role, I couldn’t handle—
and never preached again.