On my fifth birthday, Bible spread open

Across my left palm to Luke 15:11

And pencil clenched between my molars,

I stood at the bathroom mirror for hours

And practiced lifting my soft palate.

Back straight –“Like a soldier’s,” my father had said-

I kept my tongue forward and down,

Perfecting my enunciation

For that evening’s reading

Of the Prodigal Son parable

I gave before a congregation of 150.

“There was a man who had two sons,”

I began, occasionally gesturing

My hands for emphasis

And pausing to readjust my tie’s Windsor

Knot until it was perfect again.

Little did I know, years later

I’d also grow weary and leave.

Except I’d never return. No slaughtered

Fattened calf, no feast

for me. Just this: squandered wealth

and wild living in distant, foreign lands.