ALL MY FRIENDS ARE LOSING god

after Christian Wiman

Love, all my friends are losing god
and finding a saturated life:
The ripped rubber edge of a single wind-
shield wiper flopping rain against the glass;
and the last few leaves of butter lettuce soaking in cilantro
sesame dressing that beckons us to try to recreate it;
and the six pint glasses, chapstick stains the gold
trim around their rim, abandoned on the table;
and the swirls of balsamic and black sesame speckling
six jade bowls lined with a thin film of vanilla ice cream;
and tongues wiping the sweat off their lips, after
their shirt is lifted up and off on the dance floor;
and the wet-stone-note wine pouring into another glass,
and another, and another, and another.
Maybe I am too?
Losing god that is. Maybe I already have?
Maybe it is the green of it all?
The not-yet blue bonnet season of spring
in Central Texas. Love. My friends and I
are lost losing god & finding a longing that won’t shake
itself out of our bones, won’t wring itself dry,
won’t offer itself to the world like a farmer’s market
framed portrait print of a lobster; upright and red.
Love. My friends
and I are lost losing god and finding—
saturated in the crooning saxophone
beneath the disco ball—poetry.
As if jazz could spin itself an ode to the search
for Love in this lost god,
this fractured world. As if jazz could do anything
but spin itself a poem. Love. The turning
fracture turned itself a world, the disco
ball reflecting the cold white light back out
as warmth. And we are losers of god and finders
of the night surrounded by beautiful, credible friends,
my beautiful, credible friends.