Before Mom got sick, Sundays always taught
me to Be still and know that I am God. I tried
to look my best when asking the sanctuary’s
chandeliers for forgiveness. Six feet deep
and seven months later, I got my first job
changing oil and on Sundays I would work
double shifts to pay for my sins, and I’d roll
them up and smoke them and they made me
Be still, and know that I was God.

Now I’m a ghost wallowing throughout this city’s
shell, haunting streets and raising hell—I’m broke
like a wallet and nervous like first days, but I am
adapting to the side effects of motion sickness,
the way my stomach overthrows my mind and liberates
my insides—defying gravity, flowing upstream
through my esophagus, they bellow out like cigarette
smoke or the sounds of my vocal chords. And slowly
I’m forgiving myself for being still for all the things
that don’t exist: I’ve found a strange heaven
in staying ceaseless.