Pretzel sticks, lemonade and 
How to ask people if they believe in God.

I learned to dip pretzels in lemonade
during snack time at Sunday school.
We broke God into three pieces
and set a part of him in a hollow
of each space in the pretzel braid.
Pretzel windows to our father, our son
and the dove who coughs on us like feathers
and sets our tongues on fire--
We wiped off salt collected on paper plates
and wooden tables.
We sat in chairs too small for our
knees and sometimes I looked
out the window through the whole class
to make faces at street lamp angels 
and God sitting cross-legged from a branch--
It might work for some people but I'm 
not the kind of person who anyone could 
teach God to. I don't think he's 
really the kind of thing you teach. 
I know God could be just something that I want to 
see in the way tree branches cross
a window frame in strands of scraggle yarn
but I can hear him knitting when I go to fall
asleep and he brushes the back of my
neck with his thumb-- drops a stitch and picks it
back up to remind me that we've all made things
we need to unravel--
Did you know He knits when he's nervous?--
He leaves his unfinished projects in the
in the bushes--
by my window.
A square of a quilt.
The torso of a scarf.
A wool hat for her to wear
when autumn lost all her hair--
And She cried again-- dangle-legged from a wooden bench
next to me. I tried to remind her
that we all lose our hair sometime or
another and that God can knit hats
and mornings and people like us to 
sit next to. He doesn't stop knitting
even if he leaves a lot unfinished outside
my window-- I've had people tell me
I invented a God so that I could
say everything was beautiful even
when it's not-- so that I could think 
everything can be unraveled and re-knit--
It's not just that though-- God
dips pretzel sticks in lemonade like me
and he taps on windows when Sunday school 
teachers talk too much about blood
and not enough about pretzels or doves
or wooden braids--
God is the salt flecks and the paper plate.
He's the boy next to me who doesn't eat
pretzels and watches the clock instead 
of the window.
Carves his name into the long wooden table--
maybe he was sad or bored
or he was mad at God for letting autumn
lose her hair and cry dangle-legged--
I pretend that God lights 
all the street lamps all at once when
I walk home from the library too late
to carry a moon so full 
on my shoulders-- dove breathed feet
as a I go-- 
You've all been a girl of bent snack-time
shoulders and don't tell me you haven't
see all the street lamps light up at once
like lemonade and angels. If you haven't dipped 
pretzels in street lamps-- you should try it.
Sit with her on the bench when she cries
and tell her that she still looks beautiful
even though the hat is scratchy.
Share pretzel sticks with her and tell her
about street lamps and angels and 
all the times you listened to 
God drop a stitch to stroke the bends
in your shoulder where you tried to hold
up the moon.