Mitzpah

By Martha Serpas ’94 M.Div.

Between you and Jesus, I’d choose you.
(I cannot cling to what I have not touched.)

May you look for God in me
                                     and find me wanting.
May you fear me disappearing down the anchor line
just below the chop, safety stops
reversed, first, second, then third, always a lower
deep, another ledge, a wall.

Between you and God, I choose God,
            which is to choose you.
You who do not satisfy, but are closest
to the atoll or what lies beyond the atoll,
everything that conspires
                                      in the dark to enchant me.


“Mitzpah” from Double Effect. Copyright © 2020 by Martha Serpas. Used by permission of Louisiana State University Press.