Eighteen feet down where the sun doesn’t touch me
I tumbled, landed hard, the wind knocked from me,
still alive. Screaming for help doesn’t count
in the woods where nobody lives.

Crab-crawling on the walls doesn’t help, nor does
trying to jump, or wishing a ladder or
screaming for help in the woods where nobody lives
and my telephone landed above.

God helps those who help themselves,
says the adage, which implies to me
That this God turns his back on the helpless
and that I will starve to death in this hole.

The dead don’t exhort their God from the grave,
The living give testimony in their churches;
the sample is biased.When I die,
no one will blame God for forsaking me.