Religion in the Souls of Their Feet

I. Reclining on My Cedar Deck

Sunlight warming my naked limbs.
My own prettiness warming
my eyes and soul.

My own prettiness making
the naked limbs of my soul glow—
arms, hands, feet—

giving them an alluring smell,
animal-clean. Just every now and then,
a bracing whiff of rot.

II. My GIDEONS

I put my GIDEONS
in the left back pocket of my jeans shorts.
Tiny, shamrock-green. Some

smiling guys in suits were handing them out by Macalister College.
I smiled right back: “I love 

the New Testament! Sweet!” I said, as I caught the man’s eye.

Showed my GIDEONS

at my discussion group today. Beth had used religion to refer
to the legal-inquisitorial

aspects of a creed, opposing it to faith and core belief.
This seemed fine,
but I was never one to say, “I’m spiritual not religious.”

Wanting to stand
up for what religion means to me, I
sang—

          Lord, I
          want more religion, Lord, I
          want more religion, Lord, I 

          want more religion, 
          to get me on to God.
          Religion makes me happy and then I

          want to go,
          to leave this world of trials and
          troubles here below—

Baptist song remembered by a white
Arkansas man, who learned it eighty years ago standing outside
an African-American church. People were probably

embarrassed by my singing, but
it came naturally. Turned out, Beth agreed with me.
“That’s completely different!” she said.

III. My religion

My relgion is my beautiful feet.
Everything about my energy,
my optimism,

my sexiness—
that which will still exist when I am gone—
is in my lovely feet.

Come, for the 

səʊls
around you beat!

October 2015