crucifix

I am wrung on bitter wood
Outstretched to die like a coward
Velvet with the liquids of the body
I am rotten with the wound

String the cuts like cable
Holding your arms for their shame
Naked as the nail, it
grows alongside the bone
in the marrow even as a child

Lonely spread as cancer
As tobacco as smoke as poison
smeared as venom jam
Slow-spreading slow death
As if I am dying in slow motion
Decaying as soon as I exited the womb
As if I slid from between my mother's legs
straight into a casket

I am a grave
My body a black hole

lazarus still sleeps
in a bed made of unwashed sheets
in a car parked alone in silent structures
with dirty blankets and late night tv
with earphones and lonely computer screens

lazarus still sleeps
in a tomb while
home evades me

jesus wept ii

judas
kissed the pious cheek
with fingers crossed behind the back
sold the silver at the temple then
fled to feel the
friction at the neck

in this we share our guilt
in this we share our death

sip the wine from holy lips and
depart.

false religion

inside feels like the
drippings of hot candle wax
the kind that kisses the
cold of neglected altar tops

inside feels like angry fire
the burning fervor of
pentacostal light that
singes the flesh of unfaithful hearts

i say a prayer to
crucify the adolescent ache
lord, christen this sinner-saint
i pay penance for
sins not mine
while i was yet unborn

swollen body battered in
the sanctuary
this is the
impossible baptism
where water can't
cleanse the inside stains

i am hell


god,
mother,

why have you forsaken me?

my mother's love is real
it is as real as her hatred
and as i grow there is
one thing i know is true

i will always cause her pain

profound lonely
break the light of
little girls

she strums the threads
hears the sound of red
nicks the fingers

an era discolored by a bruise
contusion of the palms
from knuckle-less knocking


can't see
so keep the moon glowing

jesus wept

god is not great or
majestic or kind
it's sunday and i'm
starved at the pews

preacher preaching
snatch'd the souls by their
limp necks, found them
discarded and
drunk at a roadside--he
stitched them with strings to
hang off god's fingertips like
they had jumped off a cliff

suicide at 6am
rubbed the rosary against
the thin of shameful skin
slit the chapter and verse
on unholy wrists

jesus wept
asked judas to
collect the tears