Meditations on the Flesh

Meditations on the Flesh

On darker Sunday mornings when the walls
Of the old sanctuary chance with muted echoes
As they pass the cup down through the fingers
Of the strangers in my pew, I reach out
And bring the darkness in and hold it in my cheek,
Wishing I could hold a whispering deity like that--
Like a warm velvet liquid that flows through my teeth
And forces swallowing.

In the evenings, darker still,

I sink myself into you
With the expectation of tasting your flesh
Down the long lick of my body--
That catacomb of half-forgotten pleasures
Lying under the covers, awaiting audience.
Under the hushed breath rush of our meeting,
The whispered panegyric pealing like new church bells,
I am wishing I could hold a breathing God like that--
Like a love that laces my palms full of holes.

Then, as always, the black panic of night grips me,
Suddenly awake and sweating, sending
My fingers to your pillow, fingering for slivers of breath.
My palms come up empty,
Gaping at the loss of something sacred.

But in the morning, I wake up with you
Still on my breath, with that suspended
Knowledge of things hoped for and half-touched.
I wonder what it is to hold out a hand
In the dark and to know
That the emptiness holds an intangible breath
That touches my blood, that touches my flesh,
That whispers blunt nails through the thick of my palms
Until I start to feel under my skin
That curious audience, with heads bent sideways, trying to follow
The meter of the strange new song that is ringing through the hollows.