jesus & beer (i'll be #3)

another little poem...

“what’s your take on the whole Jesus thing,” I ask.
the buzz from my last two has me a little more loose.
(thank you jesus for the beer).

as we yell in each others’ ears over the rowdy band
in this dark corridor of a club,
she tells me of what she calls her ‘last sour drive-by with god.’
I hear and smell that the brew has
let her guard down a bit too.
(thanks jesus, for the beer).

she inquires of the brickyard preacher,
televangelists and hypocritical Christianity;
she brings up the holocaust, 9/11, and childhood rape
– the latter a little more personal.
(again, thanks for the brew, big guy).

i ask “why? my first decent beer buzz in over a month
and you put me in this smoky lounge with her?”

right when i think she’s more receptive,
when i’m praying for my words
and the recognition of her self-poverty to jive,
she storms away – tears, cigarette,
clutching her half-empty beer, life, heart.
yet as i stand alone at the bar,
waitress asking what i’d done
to piss off the chick with dreadlocks,
i understand exactly why, looking up, thinking,

“hey man, if 10 people need to talk to her,
before she accepts you,
i’ll be number three.”
(thank you beer for the jesus).