pocket bible

what a relief
my god gets smaller every year.
at the august fair there was a man
handing out bibles the size
of my palm. i asked for five.
the man was ecstatic. did i take them
in earnest? belief memory is the hardest
to track. it's hard for me to know
what the faith suit felt like. 
i was fifteen. i bought a magnifying glass
to read the bibles. 
put one in my purse. i never really
got past genesis. the bible is a slow burn.
it only really gets good when
you reach jesus. each year at the fair
i would see the man again & the bibles
would get smaller & smaller. a thumb's height
& then a strawberry hard candy.  
i accepted them. sucked on the bibles 
all night in the hopes
that something miracle might transfer to me. 
in college i listened to an audiobook 
of the bible. some of the stories 
were familiar from having gone to church.
other ones felt outer space. i know i was
looking for something in the pocket bible
that i never found. i dated a boy once
who loved jesus & god that was awful. 
he wanted me to love jesus too & so 
i stared into the dead little books until
they became moths. until they became
horrible albatrosses. i didn't see the bible man
at the fair after that. i wonder if he started
to get smaller too. if now his bibles 
are the size of sand grains. if maybe only he
can read them. i am glad my pocket bibles
managed to escape. eyelash-winged little breaths.
even the source can get away. 
my beliefs have turned crepuscular. a great darkness
always comes with tiny points of light. the stars, each 
a bible turned inside out. the light waiting
to swallow the sky. the bible man still at the fair ground
in the middle of winter. his book, a fleck of salt
dissolving on his tongue.