By Wilbur Reese

I would like to buy three dollars' worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul
Or disturb my sleep,
But just enough
To equal a cup of warm milk
Or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don't want enough of him
To make me love a black man
Or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy,
Not transformation.
I want the warmth of the womb
Not a new birth.
I want about a pound of the eternal
In a paper sack.
I'd like to buy three dollars' worth of God, please.