Between Two Worlds

I am not saying that salvation is a myth.  I do

not know how to insist.  Some are better at

their dogma than I am anymore.  Here, they say,

take this line and stretch it all the way back and

see.  Proving their lineage and authority makes

them smug in their safety, but I, I am no

longer certain of what I know, no longer sure of

what can be known.  I stretched their line back

to the hurried exodus of three fleeing in the night, 

but still I am not swayed, I do not concede my

doubt.  Once I held faith firmly in my hands, heavy,

a gift, solid matter of visible mass and proof.  When

I let my fingers open, the faith fell out.  I think

maybe the form of it broke open and its essence

escaped into my skin, though, because still, I do 

not concede my faith, either.  I wear a yoke, now, 

hanging wooden over my shoulders, a weight on

either side.  Doubt swings on the left and faith

on the right.  Or the other way around.  Still, I

walk, holding the hand-hewn frame pressing
down on my neck, conscious of the sloshing

water in each pail.  Every day something spills 

out and something seeps in.  Out of and into
me, I mean, out of and into me.