Gideons

On clear September days, white men in neckties
and gold-buttoned, navy blazers with Palestinian lamps
on their lapel pins appear on our campus, cardboard cartons
on the walk beside dress shoes; tiny, green Testaments in hand.

From a distance, I spy them and turn, unable to accept,
unable to refuse, unable to make conversation with men
who seem to have stepped out of the ’70s, when my dad
belonged to the Christian businessmen’s organization

named for a prophet who, with a band of 300 men—
torches, horns, and clay jars—defeated the Midianites,
as thick as locusts, their camels without number, later
called Bedouins and founding members of OPEC.