If I Did Not Understand the Glory and Suffering of the Human Heart

I Would Not Speak Before Its Holiness

after Saint Theresa of Avila


When I close my eyes I see my father,
dying. I dab his head with a washcloth.
His open mouth jaws a gurgled amen.
His eyes emote hosannas of breakage.

I wish my eyes could blink a drone strike back
into tactical non-being; the dead
ghost down the road in a wedding convoy,
and I wonder how I might turn away

from a deep sorrow that is not my own.
When I fall asleep I don’t dream stairwells.
In me, a school of salmon swims upstream.
In me, a fish leaps against the headboard.

Dear Lord, I fear paradise diffuses,
in a sharp gust, like dandelion puff.
Set the tinder of old phrases burning.
I’m waiting to pull the bee from the rose.

I call the door ajar in me a grace.
I want to be as flagrant as the wind
that cuts December Wednesdays in half.
I hear notes that build a more merciful

God, some days, and other days I just let
the bear in my belly swing from my hips
and I paw out my animal blessings.
And my animal blessings paw out me.