Glynn Washington

Nine years old sitting in this church angry and my parents angry at these brethren in this place and now their preacher all puffed up

Red-faced, bug-eyed, steps to the podium, commands us to open your Bible to Exodus 32.

Anger has an idea.

I snatch two hangers from the hall closet, bring them back to my bedroom, strip the wires from the hangers, bend them, fashion them, work it just so.

Then I cover it, not with gold.

I don't have any of that.

Nah, instead, I wrap sheet after sheet of aluminum foil around it.

pinch and shape it into a face, into horns, the body of a calf.

I admire it for a moment.

Beautiful.

My own graven image.

Then I wait for a lull in the ever-present noise of my household, peek outside my bedroom, down the hall, push the front door open, quiet, quiet, quiet.

Pad down the front steps of her trailer, aluminum calf wrapped tight with my jacket, then I run.

Out to the middle of the woods, my secret, fast, fast, run, run until I reach the spot, reverently.

Set the calf down on a patch of hard earth, but doubt stops me, fear.

Then the anger returns, the fury.

I have asked, begged their God to reveal itself as many ways as I know.

Still, it judges me unworthy of even a word, even a whisper.

Answer me.

This is all I have left.