Suzy Zeus Gets Organized (4 page)

CHAPTER 5
Suzy Gets Religion

SUZY SLEEPS

Suzy's sleeping on the subway.

Suzy's sleeping on the 3.

Suzy's feeling like a wreck, a

bouncing check, a refugee.

Suzy needs a place to pray in.

Suzy needs a place to pee.

If you want a date with Suzy,

pin a carcass in your hair.

Wear a shark cage if you plan on

asking Suzy to the fair.

Suzy changes trains at Chambers,

since another train is there.

SUZY FOLLOWS HER FEET

INTO ST. JUDE'S

Hip-hop hymns are pounding madly.

Smell the smoke and feel the heat.

Candles glow and silver glistens.

Listen to that crazy beat.

Coney Island's now expanded

all the way to Hudson Street?

Look, it's Nathan's! In the narthex,

two-head fetuses in jars.

Down the aisle there comes a freak show—

someone's grilling rocks from Mars.

In her pew she wonders whether

all pews feel like bumper cars.

Some dumb merchant sold his holdings

all to buy one pricey pearl?

Suzy stays diversified, 'cause

Suzy's not that kind of girl.

Suzy tries to keep herself from

puking on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

"Step right up!" cries out one barker

from his sneaky ring-toss game.

Suzy pays, and plays, and misses

(gets a bunny all the same).

Suddenly she's on the Cyclone—

all she did was ask his name.

"Holy, holy," "God of power,"

"with our lips, but in our lives."

Suzy's engine's overheating—

it's enough to give her hives.

In the font she spys cool water.

Suzy takes a breath and dives.

Surfacing in Judah's Jordan,

seeing Baptist, seeing bird,

Suzy asks the man who's dripping

whose it was, that voice she heard.

Suzy wants to dwell among this—

she can be the flesh made word.

SUZY SAVORS PARISH LIFE

Suzy likes to read the Bible.

Suzy likes to smell its smell,

warm, spread-eagled there before her,

casting its unearthly spell.

Sometimes she pretends she's shut up

in her own monastic cell.

Suzy goes to church on Sundays.

Suzy goes to Evening Prayer.

Suzy goes to Bible study,

since the cute new rector's there.

(Suzy wants to press the vestments,

then decide what he should wear.)

Suzy'd like to hold the chalice.

Suzy'd like to pour the wine.

Suzy'd like to try a solo

antiphon (it's just one line).

Harry called her singing tone-deaf.

Suzy's singing is just fine.

Suzy wants to give a sermon,

mount and frame the parish quilt,

buy the wafers, clean the silver,

change the flowers when they wilt.

Suzy's going to be the biggest

pledger since St. Jude's was built.

Suzy wants to scrub the altar,

be there when the bread arrives,

help to push the boulder from the

doorway when our Lord revives.

Suzy likes the priests she's met. She

likes their husbands, likes their wives.

Life is back to normal somehow.

Suzy, safely in the flock,

thinks at thinking speed again and

sometimes sleeps around the clock.

Using towels and candlesticks, she

christens houseplants in her wok.

Suzy's been at church a month now,

shunning evil, doing good.

Suzy's looking up a passage

no one's ever understood.

Suzy loves not just her neighbors,

but the whole damn neighborhood.

SUZY PONDERS

Suzy used to feast on Sunday—

frosted flakes with milk, and toast,

juice and jam and steaming coffee,

then, pre-lunch, the wine and host.

Now, instead, she deeply tries to

teleport the Holy Ghost.

Suzy hears the organ starting,

shifts to sitting from her knees,

looks at all the pretty flowers,

wills a steady, cooling breeze.

(Last week Suzy tried the first row,

but the incense made her sneeze.)

Now Episcopalian, Suzy's

figured out what Jesus means:

buy a field and sow some seeds, rip

up the weeds, and eat your greens.

What does that new rector look like,

dressing up behind the scenes?

Suzy's ready for a mission.

This time Suzy won't go wrong.

Prospect Park was cold and dark, but

now she's better, calm and strong.

Still, she isn't great at waiting.

Hey, how long, O Lord, how long?

Suzy wants to grip life's passion.

Suzy wants to fight life's fight.

Suzy says to hell with fashion.

Suzy says to hell with fright.

Suzy says to hell with darkness—

Suzy says turn on the light.

Suzy hears the final reading

(how small is a mustard seed?),

pictures God as those beside her

stand and sing, and sit and read.

Suzy's dancing to the hymnal.

She's supposed to let Him lead?

SUZY PLEADS

Suzy, willing, waiting, isn't

liking what she's getting dealt.

God wants Suzy Zeus to cry, but

Suzy's not about to melt.

Wishes she could choke Him with the

rector's fancy bell-pull belt.

Suzy's feeling mighty lonesome.

Like a planet. Like a nun.

Like a hermit in his cabin.

Like a bad guy on the run.

Is it wrong if, now and then, she'd

like to have a little fun?

Suzy's feeling mighty timid.

Suzy's feeling mighty tense.

Suzy Zeus is mad, as ever,

that religion makes no sense.

Suzy's getting total silence

when she prays, or worse, repents.

Gazing at the congregation,

Suzy feels the men so near.

Half have muscles on their muscles.

So—invite them for a beer?

Half the congregation's gorgeous.

More than seven-eighths are queer.

Suzy gives to charities and

keeps their thank-yous on her shelf.

Suzy's been a sidewalk Santa,

raising funds—without an elf.

Suzy's done her part. Please note: she's

sick of being by herself.

Suzy thinks about the rector—

and that quiet deacon, too.

One is married, one's a homo.

What's a single girl to do?

Somewhere someone's there for Suzy.

God is gone, so tell her who.

SUZY PLUMMETS

Suzy wants to kiss the rector,

wants to lure him to her bed,

take him in the apse at night, or

in the aisle in church instead.

If God knew of Suzy's visions,

Suzy would be stricken dead.

Suzy sat and watched the Reverend

at her seventh Welcome Tea.

For a Father, Father Robert

was as hot as hot could be.

Now she hugs a sofa pillow.

Did he wonder? Could he see?

Robert does a lot of writing.

Robert knows a lot of art.

Once an Ivy League professor,

Robert is extremely smart.

Suzy's more than primed to give the

man her sacred bleeding heart.

Suzy Zeus has followed Robert

upstairs, downstairs, through the church.

He's so goddamn charismatic

he could end her guy research.

Suzy wonders what she looks like

from his lofty pulpit perch.

Suzy Zeus is cracking open,

tipping over, pouring out.

Suzy Zeus is spilling sideways,

falling faithward, dripping doubt.

Wants a little information—

like, to know what life's about.

Robert's gone to Massachusetts

in a sporty little car,

where, he says, there's only ocean

and a big ol' VCR.

Says he plans to rent some movies

then go biking wide and far.

Suzy Zeus, though left behind, is

trying hard to act adult:

not to grouse and not to gossip,

not to judge, condemn, insult.

Not to let herself start thinking

that St. Jude's is just a cult.

Suzy wants to wash his linens,

wants to hang out on his stoop.

Suzy wants to slash the tires

of his jazzy little coupe.

Suzy needs this priestly absence

as a moment to regroup.

SUZY TRIES NOT TO KICK HIM

Suzy Zeus could break his monstrance.

Suzy Zeus could burn his books.

Suzy may try
veritas,
and

soon—before she's lost her
lux.

Suzy wants to bop him with his

secret practice bishop's crooks.

Suzy had a lunch of pasta

with the pastor of her dreams.

Suzy sat there silent, desperate—

counting floor tiles, waiters, beams.

Could he see her rigid posture?

Could he hear her inner screams?

Suzy wants to tell the preacher.

Suzy wants to take his arm.

Wants to make the congregation

raise its eyebrows in alarm.

Needs to come to (all) her senses—

not to hate him, not to harm.

Suzy Zeus, O perfect pinup!

Suzy Zeus, O perfect sphere!

Suzy Zeus, supremely sphygmic—

rhythm of my inner ear!

Suzy Zeus, so coeternal,

coincide and coinhere!

SUZY TRIES NOT TO CARE

Sometimes Suzy thinks that Robert

may be just a genius jerk.

Sometimes she could smash the windows

of his bonny Village kirk.

Face it—praying can't affect things,

and the Bible doesn't work.

Suzy's going to read the Tarot.

Suzy's going to cast the Ching.

Going to use the constellations.

Going to figure yan and ying.

Try out dream interpretation—

just like Martin Luther King.

Suzy wants a year of tangos.

Suzy wants a year of Scotch.

Suzy's going to speak, not listen.

Suzy's going to play, not watch.

Quite the eager beaver, Suzy's

back to bedposts she can notch.

Down at Louie's, Suzy needs a

skirt that gets her better tips.

For her birthday, give her leather—

something where the front unzips.

If she gets a telegram, it

better be a guy who strips.

CHAPTER 6
Suzy in Love