7th line

i think god
writes on the 7th line
of vision tests

making himself small
& blurry

an N or an H maybe 
or is he a Z?

does he write poetry
or prophecy

or just little love
notes to the humans

a shopping list even

buy eggs 

the nurse in her
teal scrubs
eagerly made
me into numbers

took notes on 
her clip board

& wheeled me to 
peer into the vision test
machine

haunted yellow light

i always wonder if
one day i'll gaze inside
& see something unexpected 

see myself 
7 years old & seated 
on the crinkly doctor's paper

when i was home sick
my father made me alphabet soup 
from the can

& we let cheddar cheese goldfish
swim in the tomato broth

their flippers thrashed 
in my sore throat

i stirred the soup
in the hopes that eventually 
the letters would
align themselves 

spell something for me

spell something for me God

i learned how to read 
so that you could
make an word out 
of my skin

i read the fifth line aloud

the nurse tells me 
it's okay
you can try whichever line 
is clearest

if i did that i would
only read line one

i want to take out
my eyes & dust them
off on my jeans
like glasses--

N, E, U, R...T

she changes the slide
& there i am again 

read the smallest
line you can see

& i see myself
with my white ear buds in
i'm walking on the curb 
down Main Street in Kutztown 

it's dark & the street lights
peel eight shadows from 
my skeleton--

have you found
letter in your bones?

an 'R' wandering 
in your knuckles 

an 'S' in your wrists

read the first line

so aloud i speak
green street signs--

there's noble & pennsylvania 
by deisher lane & normal ave

it's all so pocket-sized
that i have to squint
to keep myself in view
as the dull gold light
of the vision test
looms over the image

the moon was just an old light bulb 

she's a thin girl

she has alphabets
printed on the inside of
her eyelids from 
making herself wake up 
at 4:22am 

i want to ask her 
if she could read the
7th line back then 

if we've always been
impervious to the 
mundane-ness of God

sitting in church i
would make letters out
of the abstract stained glass window 

staining us blue
& green & purple
as the sun went
down on saturday mass

blinking my whole
body into 
a vision test

i want to trace her
shadows in sidewalk chalk

i want god 
to leave me a stickie note 

the nurse changes 
the slide