O LORD, when the Angel said Listen

when the Angel said Do not fall to the earth for anyone

we were already stained in glass.

A circle of black flies biting

our arrival. Scales scraped off of a fish.

Starved girls folded at a line from Leviticus.

This is how it happened: one day we looked outside

& the bloated bodies of frogs were fucking up the yard.

Our hands bled. We saw Rorschach blood in our wounds,

Pietà in egg yolks. There was a hope chest & a threshold

& a bridegroom—revoltingly pagan. We said

Bring us the coat-check ticket for our eyes.

Nothing was so underpaid as our attention.

If ghost, if whore, if virgin—same origin story:

because X was a face too lovely, Y was a corpse in the lake.

Our sisters said Wait. Our mothers said Stay the hell awake.

We bled on our white clothes—we bore them redly

to the table. Our fathers said Tell me, will you ever

feed me something that isn’t your own trouble?

We cast away stones. There was room at the inn.

There was time to be floated as witches.

When night came, an egg-moon slid over the steeple.

We stared at the blue yolk yawning in the fire.

Our Father. Who Art in Heaven.

There were men in the alley. We knew them by name.

They said they wanted to prove we were holy.

Your Angel said Listen—

There are not vultures enough

in this world, there are not crows

to shoot out of the sky in a shaking black line.

Please, we’ve been trying

to say out loud the words for this—

to see You write it out red

in a fish-hooked curve. Have mercy—

Mouth of Poison Flowers: Speak.

Mouth of Asphodel—Say it.

DEAR KATIE

Understand I need these fragments. To tell it once is not enough.

I have a hundred holy objects, everything looked upon, to break.

Time will pass, time will pass me, attaching mile-marker threats

to every causeway. I know it’s useless. I put on every eyeliner I own.

I draw the shape—a different eye to see this. I map the innocent

spill of color to my ear. Look, I’m already half an emerald. Lit & limited, I’m

cut. Now that I can’t unsmudge the lines for any reason, I am difficult.

He takes the high road; I take the thornhedge.

Katie, I can’t find a way to talk about this

but it always happens: I have no standing with the men in my life.

You are the only one who ever asks me Are you eating?

Come close, too close, get out—it’s a blunt-edged system

& when did I begin to choose this type of man who loves to “protect” me

from himself? Lately, I hold your name in my mouth

like a talisman because we are never afraid of the same things.