Holy Envy
by Scott Hales
Dust rides the warm breeze bareback,
whipping long wispy limbs through wide
suburban streets and weedy gardens.
From where I sit, swinging in the shade,
it looks like God’s tenth plague rolling
down from the mountain, a burly cloud
with nowhere to go but here. I step inside
and listen for a mighty Pentecostal rushing
of wind. Instead, I hear the low, bovine
murmur of the air conditioner. Outside,
the dust dissipates into scribbles, a shy
lover’s poem. Disappointed, I climb
the steps, another tent maker on the road
to Damascus. Here I am, God. Blind me.
Scott Hales is a writer, critic, and historian living in Eagle Mountain, Utah. His work has appeared in Religion and the Arts, BYU Studies, Irreantum, The Under Review, The Sandy River Review, and other academic and literary journals. His first collection of poetry, Hemingway in Paradise and Other Mormon Poems, was published in 2022.
