Tell them not to go
to the banks alone.
Tell them where
they can drink
without watching
over shoulders.
Tell them drowning
is third on your list
of concerns.
First is lie down,
second, come here.
Even the water
I was baptized in
isn’t safe.
I knew God
was a man
because he put
a baby in Mary
without her
permission.
This poem originally appeared in The American Poetry Review
Tyree Daye is a poet from Youngsville, North Carolina. He is winner of the 2017 APR/Honickman First Book Prize for his book River Hymns. Daye is a 2017 Ruth Lilly Finalist and Cave Canem fellow and longtime member of the editorial staff at Raleigh Review. He received his MFA in poetry from North Carolina State University. Daye’s work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Nashville Review, and has poems in Four Way Review and forthcoming in Ploughshares. Daye recently won the Amy Clampitt Residency for 2018 and The Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award for his poems in the Fall 2015 issue.