Alex Mouw

My Lord did you save John Berryman?

My Lord did you save John Berryman? It's
against the rules to know but maybe so
are all my questions. Must I praise you
for my nerves twisted tight as shirt

hangers, fascia squeezing muscles
into atrophy—no doctor can tell
me why, no doctor smart as you.
If no John, I fear for the rest of us

who make noisy work of our pain,
like children sucking on straws. Selfish
as a weed, I have to ask: can I be saved
if I tell you that Christ too often looks

too calm? Might I climb up, carve a frownier
mouth, something more, you know, human?

---

My Lord I'm no John Berryman, right?

My Lord I'm no John Berryman, right? Sure
I live on the knife edge of rage but never
howled, delusional, through town. As for booze
I'm half the martyr he was, or less, yet

how he stoked with his little bellows
the sulking fire of no one understands
me. For self-pity we're even. Even this
poem, I want to know if you like it, if

it's worthy. At a ceramics studio
I saw a novice work a new form, pull
a plate from the wet clay ball, dimple the edge
and carve circles in the center. Then he smashed

it. Ten thousand before I can fire one. So,
Lord, whom did you make and break today?

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Alex Mouw's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, West Branch, Southern Indiana Review, and elsewhere. He also writes nonfiction and literary criticism, which have appeared in Ruminate and Christianity and Literature, respectively. He lives in Saint Louis.