New Work

First
Night of Catholicism

Everything speaks to you while in the process of grieving.

Pain, a magnetic field pulling thorns from the stems of roses–


bringing you back to that first night of real guilt, knees

a bit scraped from the rough floor, hands open then close.


If I broke it down to you, I swear you wouldn’t believe it.

You might fall back a few decades, take the phone from the wall,


the one with the long, spiral cord that twists like the gyre

& sneak to the bathroom giving five Hail Marys


into the receiver of your heart, but you know it’s never really

like that. You can always ask forgiveness, make a sign


for the cross & approach the Olympic-size swimming pool

because sharing the diving board always made sense–


to both dive right in, but something disappeared–how?

You think. How do clouds disappear–they just do, like people,


like all your grandparents & theirs too, like Houdini’s

elephant, terribly there on stage then suddenly–poof.


The stage I’m on now is actually a wave breaking towards some

shore, somewhere. I’ll get off my surf board, but it will remain


attached to my ankle & the sand will be everywhere, all over me,

little pieces of time & it hurts to rub–the rub of time,


so quickly made thin, so unlike Adam’s lifeboat rib–
I loved you in a cosmic way. I loved you
more than anything.


But now, it’s okay, you think.
Everyone’s alive & those who

aren’t once were, board in arms, walking again with no one else.