(For Sunday)

Here is a call
Open and voiced
From this gut
Grated along the back
Of this throat

Come back

My God
As rock is smoothed
By generations
Of precipitation
Of this pull
Deeper
Down
To the animal
Crouched
In the crater
Of this earth
As the deer pants for
Water
So my soul longs for
You

I have these strange visions, sensations
Under my eyes, along my skin
I have an entire universe
Lifted off my shoulders
As if I have carried you while
You
Have waited
To carry me

I
Have waited
For the empty suitors
For the wooden lovers
That I curl my breasts against
Like they might give me heat
Where is the fur
The feathers
Promised as a cloth?
I remain naked
And I can’t remember who
Told me
To look down

My Lord
Has perished
My Lord
You have expired
From hope
From usability
And the breath is smoke
And the temple rots
Shaking, vacant
In these captive Saturdays
In these straw palaces

I scour the rubble
For the memory of my King

Could we be dreaming?
Could we be so deceived?
I still bleed
I still lie
The colours peel off my nails
My hair
one day
Will go grey
But

I
Have waited
For the one who
Promised
He would return
The crown
Of righteousness
Is made of thorns
The royal robe
Covered in blood, but
I
Will wear it

I
Will carry
His cross
As my throne

I
Will carry
My corpse
To His tomb

I asked you to prove
This love
That so commits – compels me
You have died
In my arms
Lord
You have died
By my left
Hand
You have died

And I will kneel
Upon the dirt
That holds you
To its chest
I will take the love
Like water
But Lord
Do not leave me
Here alone

(They have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they have put him)

I am faded
By this garden
I am unkept
In its keeping
I am beyond this grief
I am not dead
Though I wish to be
And yet

You speak

Mary

As a dove, as a man, as a fire

As the temple
Of my wonder

The Lord as flesh
The Lord as light
The linen of another morning
The eyes to teach
Myself to me

I don’t remember
being naked
For I am clothed
In the garden
In this hour
In this soil

There is a skin
I have become
Too bold
Too cold
To cast aside
I wear your words
I proclaim you

I stretch my arms
Out wide
As an eagle

The trembling of an earthly king
Bruised in love
Raised in thunder
That all eternity
May fill its hunger
That every mouth
May drink this water

The temple of my anguish
Broken
And rebuilt
To house my joy
The bird that sings
Of my freedom

Heaven is
My face
At your feet

Death is dead

My God
Is alive

My
God is alive

My God is
Alive

My God is alive.