All winter Brother B constructs two clocks
in the monastery shop. Planed pine
in hand wallops the heart. Tonight
Brother Bernard drinks many beers
while driving empty county roads, pointing
out worthy fishing holes. Not long we do this
before a state trooper tases and tackles him.
Pulled over, Brother B decides to run. To run oddly
like a sinner’s ghost from the voice of God.
His brown robes caught on ditch branches
that held him. I watch from the monastery
truck, through the swept open driver’s door
from which he leapt – a uniformed knee,
hard-down between his shoulders. The trooper yelled.
I blinked in the passenger seat.
Brother B’s prayers, the March air.
After questions, the trooper lets me go.
I walked the sideways miles to this bar, waiting
two hours before calling the abbot about our habit.