w h e n

when the sun shines through the window, through the bedsheets and itno my naked skin, i wake up palming the nightstand for fear the way i do for glasses and it's not there, or barely there. all my dread never did me one bit of good. dust and ashes over my head, the eternal silent scream

so i'll be baby jesus, gently sing from the holy psalter and that will send me back to sleep


when the lover touches your body in the bedroom by the candlelight, when he does it on the sheets that smell like cigarettes and sin,
but--most blessedly--of him,
and everything in you rises like jacob's ladder to his angelic heaven, and he comes in you like the holy ghost, in the moment of your overshadow
and you overhear the priests and parsons, impotent and jealous trying to cover you in shame

then you be sexy jesus rocked in magdalena's arms, and you be sexy jesus luring with his charms, calling fishermen from waters and fallen sinners to his arms


when you lay in bed, after the anxiety pills, waiting for the anxiousness to peel from you--damn, how it sticks--and you have used up all the tears in your eyes, lost your voice to sighs and the crack of the floor sets you jumping, when you are battered by believing, damn exhausted, just a bag of peace has costed more than you can afford, and lost in unbelief, illiterate with doubt you can't even spell the name of the lord

then there is resurrected jesus, narrow and squeezed in every crack, almost unpalpable at your back, infinitely small and ever wide.

you become jesus, you become thomas, place you long hand in his side