Our favorite
brothers? Carry their
minutes up and over.
Run past the
bishop’s hill. Blind as photons.
Or remember
butterflies in a box, but
the box isn’t real,
so.
So stand to tell
the day go to hell.
Gather underground
while clocks lose track of time.
How the day
wills us nothing but
vacated promises. So the
accident of cold
pulse. So the need
to have wings instead
of arms, an ageless
fiction inspired by hospital
dreams
when Venus descends.
my hand. your hand. taken as the
the curtains swell. taken as moonlight
leaves tracks on the wall. as we
wade in twilight dreams. and if we
meet the matriarch of evening clouds.
and her robes of soft gray. and her
eyes lost to shadow. and whether
she puts us in a satin purse or sends
us off to a secret heaven. whether
we swallow angels like sugar pills.
whether we hold open our hands
to forgiving rain. when the gods
from years so distant as become
cool mist, when these gods fold
us back into a storybook. when
our breath becomes scented
steam. when the world turns itself
inside-out. when we are launched
into dawn, there to hang at the
apex of a perfect arc.
There are nuns.
There are no nuns.
We send them away.
Send away the priest,
send away the choir,
send away an invisible
angel.
We are the beloved.
We send away love.
One of us hungers.
One of us goes
blind from grief.
One of us steals from
the poorbox.
Share coins.
Share guilt.
Put two coins on a
dead woman’s
eyes.
She lies in her coffin.
She lies by the altar.
Did we know
her name?
