Kumugwe reached with blowing fingers
Up from the freshwater deeps far inland
From his usual salty haunts and loosed
One elegant copper earring from the lobe
Of a woman leaning over the ferry railing
Half praying to him. It shocked her to see
Her favorite piece of jewelry leap suicidally
Into the foaming waves. What does this
Lesson teach us about prayer and wishes?
The gods, the demons, the lords and angels,
Even the philosophical abstractions of them
Want only genuine sacrifices from us,
Things we don't want to give them, none
Of that malarkey we heap in our mythology
About why the gods want the parts we don't.
They want what we want to keep from them
And they will get it. It, us, all our loved ones.
All evening, the woman mourned her earring
So much she forgot she never got her wish.
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