Blasphemy

Let the blasphemy be spoken: poetry can save us,

not the way a fisherman pulls the drowning swimmer

into his boat, not the way Jesus, between screams,

promised life everlasting to the thief crucified beside him

on the hill, but salvation nevertheless.

Somewhere a convict sobs into a book of poems

from the prison library, and I know why

his hands are careful not to break the brittle pages.

From The Trouble Ball