As Lazarus
How deep is deep enough
until I reach the bent rafters
of my own ribcage? I test
the extent of my dimensions. This—
this is an effort of pencil checks,
measuring-tape & desperation.
Behind the drywall of sternum
& knucklebone, I am certain
that the same thing that aches
in the attic is what keeps it
standing. How far down is it?
That place I’m afraid to name.
That place where God lives.
I’m pressing up against the door—
an angry thumb against a tooth,
snapped loose in my mouth.
How long have I been straining
at the concrete slab of my own
foundations, barely making a scratch?
Again—again, I’ve been asking God
for permission to uproot my life
like a weed in the asphalt, to split
the stem of my spine & let me sleep.
Again—again, he keeps telling me no.
Self-Portrait as Sin-Eater
“a loafe of bread was brought out, and delivered to the
Sinne-eater over the corps…and sixpence in money, in
consideration whereof he tooke upon him…all the
Sinnes of the Defunct”
—E. Sidney Hartland, 1892
Sometimes I catch myself returning
to the forest where thick in the underbrush I buried
my youth & its fragility its prayers its bullets.
I had encapsulated my violence, pushed back the soil
& dropped its fragments foul seeds into the earth,
dropped the shots I promised God & myself I’d never spend.
In that woods I circled back just in case
someone had seen me shovel in the dirt, circled
back to find it dug back up.
I catch myself returning to find the corpse
of every pale wreckage I’ve worked against my ambition,
set exquisite with gold quartz
pomegranate & just one place setting—
a sparrow vivisected feathers
spread across the plate & a handful of bullets.
Under the shade of a willow’s dense sweat
I wept swallowed small bones & bullets’ lead
& hoped no one was there to see it.
