Three Dollars Worth of God

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.

Not enough to explode my soul
    or disturb my sleep,
        but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk
            or a snooze in the sunshine.

I don’t want enough of God
    to make me love a black man
        or pick beets with a migrant.

I want ecstasy,
    not transformation.

I want warmth of the womb,
    not a new birth.

I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.

—Wilbur Reese