God loves all my neighbors
   because they say so
     yet my house
  is the one
         untouched.

It is God I tell you
   who takes the small TV's,
     convection ovens
old gold rings
       that no more sing.

My baubles bask
     where I leave them,
TVs sputtering haggling heads,
 ovens molting
       black disasters.

They don't understand,
         but I do -
    the emptiness of their houses
is the glib face of God
   exacting inessentials
  
    yet they grieve their losses
panic, install steroid canines
     with gross low growls,
         post the local savior
  who never comes in time.  

Mourning marks the error -
   God in the guestroom, and they
can't sense him slyly paring
      them to spirit
He cannot stay

but I look forward
    to theft of coddled things
         will it, like a native willing rain.
An altar this place,
      the sacrificials waiting.

When He comes and takes
       --  is satiate --
I, initiate,
      will fill -- plundered,
           absolved, free.

 -  Julie K. Shavin