mass

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,

whoever I was, I was

alive
for a little while.

(mary oliver - from "dogfish")

but i didn't want it to go away. i wanted to cup it in my hands, like the water he said i held too tightly, the water i tried to spin into yarn.

 confessional

in the garage light musty confessional, i bring my
basket of frightened chicks
and a lace bra hung from my wrist
i come to tell you that i have a hollow band, i am an
empty bride.
an illusion, a silk and linen wrapped prize
i am rings made of wood on his hand.
i'll pour my tea onto the window ledge and call through the
iron shutters, i can smell the red velour carpet and the padded
vinyl backs of chairs, i can taste the spring air
heavy with dew.
i don't want anything from you anymore, and yet
i cannot uncurl my fingers
always a metaphor about holding on. 

once it was shown with a fist (like this)
and i could see the sky oozing out between his fingers,
"you hold things like this," he said, "you try to hold the ocean in your hand."
and then he opened his virgin palm.
i know what the sticky sweat on his forehead tastes like, i
used to sleep in his blue jacket
"you hold things too tightly," he said, and we swore marriage, but his parents said we were too young
like good church kids, we wanted to hurry up and get married so we could hurry up and do it, hurry up and make babies that loved jesus. 

once, it was shown with tears and years later over dinner i
find myself woven through his stories, i don't want anything from
him anymore, and yet i cannot uncurl my fingers to make room for
this one, the sleep-bringer and moon eyes,
i kneel at the confessional and wait for the stitches to fall out. 

the one with water pooled in his palm, he comes in my dreams and we hide from our families in houses i've never been in so that we can be together, naked. once, i dreamt i was wearing only my bathing suit, but usually we never get very far before someone interrupts us.  

i used to know what it was like to be one body with a man,
because he curled around me and his skin was soft.
we were one before we knew what it was like to really be one with anyone, we were one in the eyes of god because we prayed together and held hands. 

i wonder if it does more for me to say we were never married, or if telling people that we got divorced would make me sound older and respectable. 

i confess to holding on. i confess to holding my ground when my insides were spilling out onto the carpet.
i beg the shop light, star light to forgive us, to take the chicks and the lace bra off my arm, drop them into the well, and dress me new. i confess to loving past the hand that cups my breast. 

 5/2011

she saw the baptismal pool this morning, i should have let her touch it. i should have let her dip her hands in and watch the water drip from her fingertips, i should have let her splash.

i never wanted my past to go away. in my dreams, i run to it. i run to marriage and tradition. i run to the crunching of leaves beneath his feet. i slip into the breakdown on a rainy night on the road to somewhere, ready to peel the years that had gone by into a pile of unwanted clothing at my ankles. i gathered myself, though, i gathered the wrinkled mess at my feet and pulled it back together. i gave birth. i named her grace. i learned what that word meant and i learned its absence. i learned its struggle and i learned its way, i learned its place under the rug when we all had faces to keep. 

i was alive, then. i was alive in light of the hands that prayed together, in the notes we wrote and the promises we made. we lived in words.

we live now, in routine that is sometimes habit, in tiny light bulbs and belly breaths. the past is a cave inside my heart, a chamber in which i could rest for a hundred years.

we are nobody's slaves. we are not saved by merit nor by prayer. why does the bell ring? maybe to call forth the ghosts, to awaken the dirt beneath this year's frost. there is too much worry about outward expressions and appearances. too many times have i been asked, "are you humble? moral? right?" to you, i stay buried, choked by sorrow over the loss of a soul.

i didn't want it to go away. this morning, we walked up the steps and said hello. through prayer, we pulsed our way along. i did not speak. i read the music. i let her draw in a notebook while she sat on the kneeler like i used to do. i tried to take a picture. maybe i left our bodies behind for a while, there, slipping back into dreams and an insurmountable past that i wish would be revived. and so, we breathe.