I'm merely a floater in the eye of God,
a flake of his winnowed chaff. A twig
from the tree at whose root his ax is laid,
if you believe Luke, and I do. I am a wisp
of the fog that blinds my world this morning. A drop
from a leaking tap. An odd button. A blot.

I'm less than the smallest bone of St. Catherine's
withered fore-finger; in Sienna it's preserved
behind glass and I'm not. I'm a loose tooth.
A hesitation of wind. The lost coin never found.
A river wrinkle come and gone. An eyelash
found by an ant in the dust. A blink.

—Luci Shaw's new collection of poems, Harvesting Fog, her 30th book, came out in January from Pinyon Publishing.

Copyright © 2010 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.