The Consummation

for Mary

i

Without warning,
the river runs dry, its spine
as glutted and songless as any morgue.

Worms petrify on their hajj
toward the center of the earth.
The cactus, spoiled child,
mocks its heavy-eyed companions.

ii

I swallow dust until my petition for rain
penetrates a bureaucracy of sky.

I voice words of affinity and umbrage:
I want you to know that I am here, invested,
craving you as shadow craves substance.

Still, water remains the prodigal son.
Grass, concubine to the dewdrop,
mumbles its still-umber protest,
my garden as bloody as a slaughtered lamb.

iii

So many voices in the vestibule of anger;
Noah's beasts go mad in their cages. A cipher
is upon me; in this garden of wilted grace,
I search for agape as if it were an Easter egg.

iv

The creek learns to walk again, shuffles
tentatively through bones of pine and oak.

I am perusing old calendars, love letters,
diaries from my spring of darkness:

There were days when a diva sang,
when roses bloomed like jazz.
I recall the sky red with intention.
The pimpled face in the mirror
was not always that of an enemy.

v

Summer arrives like a parole hearing.
Starlings banter in the charcoal night.

In my imaginings, I am broken
by storms as violent as a mother's tongue.
In truth, I endure, persisting like a desert,
immune to tomorrow's taunting.

Like energy, you and I cannot be destroyed.
We are made of holy water and the feces of a god.
How does it feel to be immortal?