My Lord in heaven engages me in plight;
Fists my lips open to beware a place way out of sight.
Unspoken for, unaccounted. Unsaid and unseen.
Unsung and unclear. Undone and unkind,

For His hands bestow creation
with no fault of my own. A kiss left on my cheek.
The very corner of my mouth I tasted temptation
To Him, stenography arose, so I have written.
Stammering between a word and the next.
What am I to Him if but a shroud?

Before His own might
This woman is my beloved.
My own being as hot as the earth would ever doubt
by birth at home, limb for limb. Blood and soil.
This place where His hands mound me –

My Lord in heaven hears my prayer:
strike me twice to my death,
for this love of mine won't ever suffice.

All of these words cage my experience,
Even if i burst my head open – won’t You
Put me up with The Choir? Bring about deliverance?

This secret place to
Bite my tongue red
scream away her scent
Mask it with the words You spoke,
I’ll repudiate her plough with a feathered stroke.
I’ll trace a pulse if it lingers within for too long.
Her beating heart shares my own
for this woman is my beloved.

That night I slept on a mattress on the floor.
And had I known then,
I would’ve
Embraced Your Grace to last me late.

Spread open on brawling ink
Tinted and olive in skin
And a breath hot and sour – disgusting.
That night I slept on a mattress on the floor.

And in he came
Wincing glory all purged might
With mirthful spite plus rage,
Employing a tetanus graze on my thigh.

You handle the comforters, force me down.
What I remember, by the grace of God
Is but a raven twilight.
And a single mangled wetting tear
On a blue tiled entresol.