When God Leaves You Like Your Dad Did, Let Him

Now that my priest has explained to me that God

has created each and every one of us in his image,

I can see the resemblance between my father and Him.

They seemed the most similar on the night of Christmas Eve,

twelve years ago, when I was an angel in the play.

I don’t remember the white wings, or the blinking lights,

Or the crowds of parents pressed against cameras to record their children,

But rather the simmering of backhand comments towards my father

for not going to mass and leveled voices rising, carrying

threats of calling the police and the scratches etched

into the legs of the dining room table, thrown out of the back door.

I remember collapsing myself into a ball, trying to block everything out.

When I think of my father that night, I can see God in him,

reeling and words slurring, red faced with veins snaking

around his neck. And when the door slammed behind my father’s body,

I could see the way that God had left us to fend for ourselves,

like my father abandoning his family,

choosing beer and cigarettes on Christmas Eve.