Agnostic Wandering

God was a horizon

Not-God was another

They said “Don’t sex

or fuck,” they said

“Here’s a ring for Jesus.”

So I jesused. I sang

I stilled my hips, smoothed

the churn when I walked

that wrung butter into being

somewhere in my jeans

I did believe. I did. I sang

I hallelujahed. I wore out

the knees and hems of skirts

and kept my hands mostly

to myself, joined missionary

They kept me at home

They kept me in a room

with electrified standards

with soap and a wooden spoon

snapped on my ass more than once

When I got out I had to learn

how to dance, how to dance

with my tongue. Guilt was easy

to shake off for Depeche Mode

finally: whispers in ear canals

But it wasn’t the open space I craved

and sex can be just another bare room

Something else is out there, I smell it

I smell it thunderous, ozone tang

What’s the inverse of a prayer?

I have an IUD and study IEDs

I know how we disintegrate

before war, during, after, and

In not-war, too. I know the splatter

against the desert or the birth canal

I know the composure of the sterile field

that bears up under salt and says “not me”

I will not kill. I will not bear a bloody life.

I will open my palms. Ruler-slap or shake them

Do what you want. You can’t reach me

No matter how you baptize or water board

Force me, and I’ll testify that you still can’t

go deep enough. I can be way down far.

I am a snail voice, a flaunted dust—

This is all there is and ever will be

This body. These many-lined hands

calloused. That horizon, flat as a sheet

laid over a corpse. That thunder-beat

under. That dew. That hump of morning.

That lovely-toothed piano in the corner.