Chapel Carpet

Gray-blue carpet. Chapel. Twenty-six.

I knelt like kneeling fixes

anything. Please. The residency.

Carpet shampoo. The indecency

of begging out loud in a room that small.

Last week: the article. The fall—

director out, misconduct, program axed.

Half the cohort wrecked. The facts

say I'd have been in it. Dead center.

Every door I begged to enter

would have locked behind me.

Chapel floor. Fluorescent. Find me

at twenty-six, knees on that carpet,

asking God for the wrong target.

I was so sure. So goddamn sure.