alison keiser / poem

Baptism

God,

I am just as easily my backyard grass. Or the ice-cold, 

dark concrete path, or the top of the rusted 

drain pipe: all here to drink your morning rain. 

I know the miles this water has stretched to collide with me. 

I splash like a kid and ask if you are there.

The unfeeling chill of winter tide hosts my wet, chalk toes, 

turns my feet into mannequin’s, but the deadness decides 

to stop there. It does not crawl up me. I take it as a good 

sign. Your endeared sky kisses my face with water pecks. It is warm 

enough. On the back steps, the water fills my coffee cup

full. I try hard to be something for you. I try

to fill you back, but I have nothing to give. I want 

to feel the people and the clouds and you sharp inside me

like a broken bone. 

But rain runs down my cheek with the soft back 

of your ghostly knuckle. I know

it is a wonder the world and I ever collided.

I dance like a woman and say sorry for not being there. 

My feet become blue, coated in that black

-tar slush. I press one over the other, back and forth, 

like an embrace. It is warm enough. I start 

to come to life, this rolling tenderness. 

I think I want a sting to buzz through my feet, 

but they ache and ache and ache. I begged 

for a rapture packed in your thunder, but it is quiet 

on my back porch.

---

Alison Keiser is a poet, novelist, and editor. She’s a midwest native currently residing in Portland, Oregon. Her work can be found in Sink Hollow, Midway Journal, and Palatine Hill Review. She was awarded the 2023 Vern Rutsala American Academy of Poetry prize.