Unclaimed Devotee, Confused, Cloistered since March, Rides his Bike All Day to the Same Place

God loves me like a sprinkler loves a swing set.
Especially the kind that whir up on their own;
a click, and it’s 11 a.m. on the schoolyard lawn. 
There are freshly blown sidewalks.
I pass faceless again as child, as sea breeze
greets a landfill. Lord, there are times 
when I somehow forget my own life 
in this wind. Somehow fall 
six-stories high when I look
at this ledge of a sunset. But how do I lose
those desires I don’t want to design
anymore? Yesterday, for example, I tried to kiss
a lamppost. You put them so high up,
the clouds, and when they glow, 
my back stands like a groundhog:
one rising after the other. I saw a hog spring up 
yesterday to a child holding out a Cheeto,
the way you dangle that sun. This is how
I’m asking forgiveness today. This
and covering ground I’ve already covered.
Again? The moon? Too much
like a bulb, too much a program—up,
down, that’s all it is these days:
sun gone, peddle home, moon now
coming up to cover the grass like concrete—
no, a little less tonight, insignificant, lame
like a droplet of water.  

ξ

No Title, No Subject

For isn’t that the fear?
Defined by a few words, capital letters, 
a name, epitaph on tombstone 
with the years, gloss of flowers torn
by wind and rain. Or is it the forgotten 
we fear? So I write some lines
to be read at the funeral. But what I want 
is for you to be happy,
because a happy customer endorses
a popular product, and emotions, I’m told,
are contagious. I want to catch happiness
from you like a disease. Dandelion seeds
floating over the cemetery.
My mom chose not to be pinned down
like her parents. We let sail her ashes
through the mountains of Boulder, Colorado.
The thought of spring makes me
want to sneeze. No, not want, need.
As in, I need to rid myself of belief in life
after death. Or, I need to believe you can hear me.
Repeat after me: often, the fear of death
becomes the cause of a blessed life.
They say so in churches. They say so
on infomercials for anti-aging skin cream. 
But the Rothkos in the Houston chapel 
preach with wrinkles spreading 
across open graves where
no title prepares or attends them. 

ξ

Caleb Braun earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington, where he received the Harold Taylor Prize. He is a PhD student in creative writing at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. His poems have appeared and are forthcoming in Image, Blackbird, Cherry Tree, The Atlanta Review, and elsewhere. He can be found online at calebbraun.com.