1

I pretended to sleep, my back turned before
tent-mates unzipped and started.

Can’t help that. Can’t help but smell
and remember. Rain hard, only canvas keeping

the storm beyond us. The boys whisper
behind my back, hands in secrets I feel

we share because good men share—
as the Master keeps telling us—troop

loyalty, let alone safety. An important
lesson, like learning knots. Takes discipline

and focus, right hand over left, a tip pulled
through the loop you have to leave open.

Time yourself, so your heart has more
competition. Evolving, the manual says.

God simply reworking his promise. Over
and over, the hymn a dirty angel sings, wet in his

Heaven. Master, how do we undo these ropes?
And night, why about us must it tighten?

2

My manual must be soaked, no pages free
to answer the grip behind my back, or explain

why rain contains so many sounds a post can’t
make out loud until ropes come off.

3

The Master can’t deviate from teachings just
as the disciples couldn’t. But they did, I know.

Golgotha, the garden, probably rain. Facts not
unnatural the manual implies, Jesus no doubt little

different from Judas when it comes to the body.
I smell sweat that could have come from my father,

water dirt soaked up. Rain makes earth talk deeper.
Bowline and half-hitch, square knot and grannies

loop about an urge that demands to be followed
like an apostle. I know what the Bible says

about the body rolling over. We pitched our tents
beneath the trees. The manual said we shouldn’t.

Leaves will do as they must after rain. I hear them
starting. Drop by drop, a wet knot slipping.

"Jamboree" by Dwaine Rieves