Grace

Because grace shows her face at random,

with no foreshadowing or prayer on my part,

I’m terrified of her, I tell my husband on a walk,

where we do the bulk of our complaining.

It’s terrible, to want something so unpredictable,

as if she comes only when she’s bored.

But, he reminds me, we’ve sworn to stop resisting

the zillion variables beyond our control,

since we quickly tire of our own voice,

so let this lamentation be lightened by a joke:

“What is the Left’s favorite snack?”

But I’m in no mood since I’ve lost a thumb to the

punchline, and my digitally-privileged husband

should not punch down with his five-fingered fist,

and now I’m complaining again,

angry at an Ugly Sky of Leering Gods

who stick warts on genitals and noses,

compels married men to whistle while tuna

casserole bubbles in the microwave at work.

But this poem is not what you think it is.

And it is not about who you think it is about.

It’s about how grace must fail more than succeed

or you would not sigh with relief when things got better.

It’s about how you must clasp hypocrisies

like you clasp your own hand,

squeezing contradictions into a fist that must

occasionally unfurl to receive, better yet, give —

and though we’re told the binary doesn’t exist,

I bitch, my heart beats in black and white.

“The Left,” my husband grouses, sun ripping through a leaden sky.