Poem Hitting Me at the Moment:: Andrew Hudgins, Praying Drunk

If I didn't have an MFA already in fiction, and if I wasn't thisclose to paying off my loans from those first two times around, I would hunt down Andrew Hudgins and make him (by which I mean ask him politely to) be my teacher. What I like most about this piece is how it switches registers on us gleefully and without apology, from the exquisite bathos in the first two lines, the whole first stanza actually, which dials down to the very earnest final four lines.

I would like to write a poem that is funny. Any kind of humor would do, honestly, but I aspire to this kind of poem. Someday.

Praying Drunk

by Andrew Hudgins

Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk.

Again. Red wine. For which I offer thanks.

I ought to start with praise, but praise

comes hard to me. I stutter. Did I tell you

about the woman whom I taught, in bed,

this prayer? It starts with praise; the simple form

keeps things in order. I hear from her sometimes.

Do you? And after love, when I was hungry,

I said, Make me something to eat. She yelled,

Poof! You’re a casserole!—and laughed so hard

she fell out of the bed. Take care of her.

Next, confession—the dreary part. At night

deer drift from the dark woods and eat my garden.

They’re like enormous rats on stilts except,

of course, they’re beautiful. But why? What makes

them beautiful? I haven’t shot one yet.

I might. When I was twelve, I’d ride my bike

out to the dump and shoot the rats. It’s hard

to kill your rats, our Father. You have to use

a hollow point and hit them solidly.

A leg is not enough. The rat won’t pause.

Yeep! Yeep! it screams, and scrabbles, three-legged, back

into the trash, and I would feel a little bad

to kill something that wants to live

more savagely than I do, even if

it’s just a rat. My garden’s vanishing.

Perhaps I’ll merely plant more beans, though that

might mean more beautiful and hungry deer.

Who knows?

                I’m sorry for the times I’ve driven

home past a black, enormous, twilight ridge.

Crested with mist, it looked like a giant wave

about to break and sweep across the valley,

and in my loneliness and fear I’ve thought,

O let it come and wash the whole world clean.

Forgive me. This is my favorite sin: despair—

whose love I celebrate with wine and prayer.

Our Father, thank you for all the birds and trees,

that nature stuff. I’m grateful for good health,

food, air, some laughs, and all the other things

I’m grateful that I’ve never had to do

without. I have confused myself. I’m glad

there’s not a rattrap large enough for deer.

While at the zoo last week, I sat and wept

when I saw one elephant insert his trunk

into another’s ass, pull out a lump,

and whip it back and forth impatiently

to free the goodies hidden in the lump.

I could have let it mean most anything,

but I was stunned again at just how little

we ask for in our lives. Don’t look! Don’t look!

Two young nuns tried to herd their giggling

schoolkids away. Line up, they called. Let’s go

and watch the monkeys in the monkey house.

I laughed, and got a dirty look. Dear Lord,

we lurch from metaphor to metaphor,

which is—let it be so—a form of praying.

I’m usually asleep by now—the time

for supplication. Requests. As if I’d stayed

up late and called the radio and asked

they play a sentimental song. Embarrassed.

I want a lot of money and a woman.

And, also, I want vanishing cream. You know—

a character like Popeye rubs it on

and disappears. Although you see right through him,

he’s there. He chuckles, stumbles into things,

and smoke that’s clearly visible escapes

from his invisible pipe. It makes me think,

sometimes, of you. What makes me think of me

is the poor jerk who wanders out on air

and then looks down. Below his feet, he sees

eternity, and suddenly his shoes

no longer work on nothingness, and down

he goes. As I fall past, remember me.