I tell the joke the way a priest would say the words,
with intention and with reverence for what the telling affords,
the joke as prayer, the prayer as joke, both reaching toward the same,
the moment of connection where the separate become the frame.
The congregation at the comedy club is not so different,
from the one assembled on a wooden pew and indifferent,
to everything except the thing the speaker will reveal,
about the nature of the human and the comedy of real.
The joke as prayer, the prayer as joke, the two are closer than,
the theology will tell you and the comedy will plan,
both are asking for a moment out of ordinary time,
both are asking for the comfort of the unexpected rhyme.
I say my jokes the way my grandfather said his grace,
with full sincerity and purpose and a very specific face,
a face that says, I mean this, even if it makes you laugh,
a face that says, the joke and the prayer share the same path.
And when the room laughs with me at the thing I have offered,
it feels like an amen, like something truly proffered,
like the universe has heard the joke and answered back in kind,
and the joke as prayer has found the peace it came to find.