Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning
and shown the dawn its place
For taking hold of the ends of the earth,
till the wicked are shaken from it? (Job 38:12-13)

Never—by the time I rise the morning and the dawn have already left.

They’ve gone to that place in which their grip, one after the other, takes hold.

I have instead wrestled with the dark, the warmth, until one of us wins.

It happens as I rise to surface, gasping the air which dreams withhold.

When among the wicked I shake, then shower, shave; day takes hold of me.

I connect to brothers’ silence shared under the chapel’s blue window.

A command without words, measuring what will be lost without my presence.

Then Another takes hold of my shaken self to know and be embraced.