checking on the preacher by George Perreault

checking on the preacher

he was scavenging for an old photograph,

his first wife, alone, a Canadian ferry,

wind-blown and smiling, the happiest 

he’d seen her since their wedding, 

years before all the wreckage.

probably

her boyfriend took it, he said, guy was a

trumpet player, and they were real sweet

on each other, never doing nothing, but if

you were out of the picture, she once told me, 

then she’d probably make a play for him,

and knowing about her other chances,

that teacher who’d drop by whenever i 

was out of town, the insurance man who

made her sweat the back of her knees,

and Raymond, of course, if he had asked,

she never could have said no, 

and maybe

that’s the reason he’d made that misstep 

preaching on John Fourteen, saying 

if Truth is the Way, then God’s gotta 

be a woman, the way the most of them

believe only the truth can set you free, 

even if some truths so powerful, best

you ease up on them now and then, 

like when

you’re sleeping with a second cousin – 

how you get so desperate for the haylofts

you just hafta – but you can’t tell no one, 

not like her moron husband sidetracking 

his way home from work, jumps into bed 

with this friend of theirs then breaks down 

sobbing in her arms how he’s so sorry, 

clueless how that’s a fuck-for-free card 

the whole rest of her life, 

saying now

a photograph sure be nice – my wife shining 

like sun warm on the water, or maybe Jodie, 

that time hiking when i’d skipped ahead 

just to turn and watch her wakening into 

all those sleepy mornings still to come, 

or Suze in Atlanta, people stopping dead

in their tracks, picking up her film star vibe, 

these southern women, she says, they’re all 

flirting with you, and how i have to explain 

her own smile, how even these streetlights, 

the way they’re leaning in.

i’m thinking 

he told me, maybe if somebody should ask,

get some retired preacher, vacation work,

no need for chapter and verse, just three 

or four photographs – look at these faces.  

forget that blind alley of detachment.

this is what God wants from you –

someone else’s unhinged joy.  

and your involvement in it – 

to be a fleeting agent of heaven, 

it’s all any god will ever ask.

George Perreault's fifth full-length collection, lie down as you were born, was released in July 2023.