Jeffrey Calhoun

ON A MINOR MIRACLE I BARELY REMEMBER

My brother asked how many gunshots
it would take to kill a god.
I said one good bullet
made of silver, wrapped in garlic,
cased in pure wood.

Feuerbach shot the divine up
with so much heresy,
wondered how it survived.
He thought god was the mind
sitting on a throne in the stars.
But in a day when wolverines
with business degrees spar
in suits for every dollar,
heaven looks like fake silver,
the kind in a cheap earring
you give to a girl you like but don't love.

Yesterday, a high school student was beaten
for not showering, for revolting,
for not wanting to be cleaner
than the man you left in the streets
sucking on a paper bag,
an oversized pacifier.

When an ocean can take away the coastland,
make tomorrow disappear like a firefly
under a little boy's boot,
my brother and I drop to our knees,
pray for an old woman
who turned to a needle for god,
for a little girl who let us kiss her once
without asking anything in return.

Jeffrey Calhoun is an upperclassman at the University of Dayton. After graduating, he plans to pursue a graduate degree in cellular biology. His writing credits include 2River, Lily, Loch Raven Review, Poems Niederngasse, SOFTBLOW, Poetry Midwest, and Triplopia.