Tom Snyder: Collected Poems

Christ among the Plumbers

I worry him
with my irons and flux, convinced
a religious longing
may prevail.

Sunday afternoons, he brings
his singing blowtorch,
the hourly wages
for my obvious sins.

His repeated tapping reminds me
I am not alone, after all.

In the parable of the bumper stickers
where men struggle to relax by drinking domestic beer,
the water to the toilet must be shut off, we learn,
before the master may begin his work.

Happy as a little horse he comes,
a sure and cheerful man,
transcendental
in his radio-controlled truck.