3: Pentiment

vespers

i have never loved a man nor woman nor God

but there is an anchor and cell in me

that wishes Faith only wellness, wealth and toppled walls

yet calls myself hypocrisy

compline

effigy me i

lurk through the window

               (wound? orifice? an eye?)

and pleading cry that she stop digging

through this grave

the Goddamn melodrama

it’s not living is it

it’s not living

living

living

living

through other masks and ekphrases have i imaged

these same anchored stones

i’ve closed men’s sight and woman’s eyes

i’ve sewn God’s own heart shut

i’ve dug this grave with lettered hands

matins

and with words chopped minds apart

lauds

               Really, some other me explains, it’s just the Law of large numbers.

               If a painter paints

               or printer prints

               an ark-length canon of human faces,

               he will of course produce your faces, too.