#catechism
I did not know her sadness
I cried and wailed, slightly amiss
Like a man in bad company who is blind
Now my heart looks for an escape
Apr 21, 2020
Apr 21, 2020 at 8:22 AM UTC
Sister Magdalene had her own parking space
in the lot of the church where my grandfather
placed his hand on my shoulder.
Over the other, Joan of Arc whispered a joke
about the Father.
Something about bad breath.
I giggled a fragmented
Amen.
As a young girl I dreamt of the honor
of battle and the burden
of armor. Each morning I’d awake,
my wrist sore from painting fields
menstrual red. My thighs ached.
My horse's name was Gust.
She was the color of overcast.
Once, she got so tired
she kneeled. When she stood
her stomach held the night sky.
I laid beneath her and named stars
from bits of her fur
until the field began to whisper so loud
that I woke.
Sister Magdalene sat in the first row of pews.
Her skeleton hands held a candle. The flame
tip-toed up her habit with the resolve
of a field of corpses rolling their eyes
toward salvation. When the flame
reached her chin I bit my lip.
Joan asked what’s wrong
or what’s right.
My mouth was full.
The flame grew to reach the Father,
kneeling at the feet of a cadaver.
I listened to the church bend
in the heat until Joan begged that we leave.
Apr 6, 2020
Apr 6, 2020 at 11:48 AM UTC
He lived within my normal
Without catechisms
One leg at a time
Pants and glory
He loved within my normal
Without judgment
A freedom to live
The freedom of happy
He lays within my Normal
With complete peace
a freedom to laugh
A kindness to smile
He loved my normal
And put me to sleep
He slept, we sleep.
Then dreamt
My normalities became his freedom to be
His laughter Her Cadence
A rave of emotional dialect
Nothing to conquer
Nor ranks to achieve
He lived and loved within
Within my normal
Within the normalities.
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 10:18 AM UTC