I liked the way you and
your crisscrossed legs sat on
my middle-school-ignorant
navy-blue and daisy-patterned comforter,
watching,
hearing,

the way your fingers crept
towards the neck of my ukulele
while the magnetized look in your eyes drew mine and
my own fingers fell
slack in divine-driven intrigue,

the way you and
your eyes
full of quiet study and wisdom, like
worship, like
your respect of this instrument as not wood but as
hundreds of years of polished amber-tinted history
has earned you ownership, and it
does.

you and
your fingers then
spun aching minor chords, like
worship, like
somehow, in the sparkling incensed-violet melody you
spilled all over
me in my righteous nihilism

you and
your body became an
offering, and
the wood

burned my fingertips when you
handed it back to me, ashamed and awe-stricken, like
worship, like
your life is an offering, and even

when I found the notes you played
(on this instrument that is not mine)
200 days and 200 nights after I knew you and
your legs sitting on my bed and
your multidimensional fingers,
worshipping,

no matter what I tell myself, I
am not a believer in beyond, and
pretending to pray just reeks of
my own mortality.