If I were called in
to construct a religion
relief would figure prominently.
Best of all the positive emotions:
warmer than contentment, deeper than joy,
intenser than ecstasy.
Congregants would go to church
in wincingly tight shoes
which they could slip off once seated.
The building would have toilets
but their use would be forbidden
until the end of the service.
Prayers would give thanks for droughts
ended, and for dangerous illnesses
recovered from, and for dismal
performances in exams that somehow
achieved passing grades, and chest-pains
that were merely muscle-strains
and hymns would celebrate dreadful
might-have-beens, and terrifying events
that never, thank God, came to pass.
