grandma don’t remember much
but she looks at the picture on her
dresser
says she’s never seen joseph
hold mary like that before
ninety-one years without tenderness

i lie on the grass like jesus
ankles crossed and arms spread
hands open towards something
like tenderness

this summer i have been gardening.
it is something else new.
it is almost july and you would laugh to
see my hands in the dirt.
i have rocks under my fingernails
from scratching at the soil
to see what
it is like underneath.
i’ve seen worms and spiders and
spiny crawlers with squirming legs.
but my dear, i have yet
to come across you.

It's rainy all the time
where I live.
It's just the every-day.
It lives where I breathe.
It sleeps where I dream.
It goes unshaken.
I hurt, I pain,
I kneed my heart out in search of the source.
What is in there?
I tire,
as I have tired before.
It's rainy where I live,
all the time.

that i may return to the something greater
that i was a part of many years ago
and my flesh will become nothing
and my soul, everything
and this will happen
all at once

the way the words die on my lips,
the way my stomach flips,
when you grab me by my hips.

drown me
and breathe life
into me again
i beg of you
bathe me
wash me from myself
swell
and break
into my skin
curl around me
and take me under

I used to play
in a great big band,
I say.
the others laugh,
they can’t understand
what it was like
to yawn and stretch and
play
in a great big band
on a misty morning field,
just beginning
to feel
the sun in your bones,
a dose in your chest
of something greater,
a golden dragon high,
the euphoria of
a musician
with no grand dreams,
just
a great big band
and the Morning Sun.