I am a tourist in the house of God;

My ephod is a lobster bib with white

And scarlet threads that shimmer, growing bright

With butter, while I crack the claws with rods

Of onyx, cram the clams of old Cape Cod

Upon the four-horned altar, and delight

In His almighty presence, where a spite

Fence hides and t-shirt shrouds all pious fraud.

A God in fifteen minutes flat, or less,

A drive across a bridge, a weekend trip

Away, is not “authentic” holiness,

For that’s a secret locals keep, their lips

Are sealed or closed in prayer, in winter they

Must go I know not where (for I don’t stay).

Greg Scalise ’18 is a Philosophy and Classics joint concentrator in Pforzheimer House.