A patron saint of good circumstance
and found money
slipped off the earth into a ravine 
and was lost.

A patron saint of lost causes
went missing. 

A patron saint of pastry chefs,
coated in flour, stopped breathing.

Are you hungry? Are you broke?
Are you forever lamenting your luck?
A patron saint of the pure voice
pushed his earplugs deep into his head
the minute you started complaining.

God doesn’t love you.
God doesn’t see you, in fact.
God reserves holy oversight
for the largest:  play of planets
and stars, winds and climate
and sustainability.  You’re the mote
carried through the grand scale.

All right then:

are you ready now
to save yourself?  Isn’t this
bracing —

the cold 
we find ourselves out in
and how we have no choice
but to stay awake?

green bell pepper smell 
all through the house
and not a pepper to be found here

maybe my grandmother’s come
and is ready to roast them
on the plates of her old gas stove

her gone these ten years
and the stove’s been ripped out
and junked almost as long

but the house smells like bell peppers
turning black on the iron plates
almost ready to be peeled

my fingers are itching
to set to work under her cataract eyes
I see them not seeing me

it’s been a while
she always knew what I was doing
I don’t know what I’m doing

smelling bell peppers that aren’t here
peeling bell peppers that aren’t here
pleasing my grandmother who’s not here