Merciel

And when the golden rosary
my mother gave me shattered,
its innards poured to the floor
and clattered with a shower.

The seconds of the collapse
shook me for minutes
as the rosary rolled beneath
each couch, each table, down
the vents, the cracks in the mantle,
split by the brick, hidden in the shag.

And when the thunderstorm silenced,
I fell prostrate – hands dug in the rug
for a morsel of what I once had.
But I found only beads. Porcelain beads
like the ones tossed at Mardi Gras
and a clear plastic thread that head it together.

A tree, dressed lavishly in fruit ripe with knowledge
of good and evil (mostly the latter) stood with pride. The peak
of Babel, harbinger of the high tide, prince of the sky.
They ripped it from its roots in the garden to the east,
carried the plank west of the city where they burnt it.

The wind carried the ash and cast it into the ocean, but
it forgot a single seed that fell into soft soil. A shy lonely petal
seen on a sunny day, a pinky of the shaft rooted into the Earth
beneath the crust, beneath the mantle, beneath the core.
Steel limbs beneath a coat of soft soil, blooming with enough fruit
to reap the entire world dripping juices from their mouth.

The day has only begun
the defeat began long ago.
Every blessing is a veil masking a curse.
Beneath each curse is another hook
to shoot into another ligament,
another joint. Have you opened an eye?
Another target on the dartboard.

You turn to the sun. You are the plant
leaning in prostrate before him,
pulling at the roots of dead soil
covered in fertilizer. It will not
resuscitate. It will only stink like shit.
Another prescription, merely another layer
to dig your legs out. To sink into.

And when you rise above the dirt
and the shit, when you drag yourself out the hole
unto his feet, you will open both eyes to see
the axe in his hands. You will realize
as his hands rise that all your work simply
saved him some steps in cutting you down.

On a road, a freeway,
behind billions of cars, trucks, vans,
a great wall of dormant behemoths,
conspirators against my life,
brutes holding me ransom
until the sun flies away
beyond the horizon, the gate
between life and death. I remain
packed with the latter,
doomed to suffer another hour.
Oldies, classic rock, whatever
shit the pop station plays.
Another defeat. The shower head wins
another night with my wife.

I found her in English class,
a group project on Romeo and Juliet,
my bridge from the east to the west,
to her eyes, to her life.
A dog hungry for the meat hidden
beneath her jeans, beneath her sweater,
ensnared by the chain around my head,
dragged into a church,
into a basin of water,
into a stadium,
into a village in Mexico,
in search of revelation, of reception,
of rapture.

Seven years I devoted for her,
seven countries I slaved over for her,
seven thousand dollars I sacrificed for her,
seven sins I abstained for her.
The cross I carried, bent over, for her
and she expects me to be there for her
goddamn wedding to the goddamn
guitarist of the goddamn worship band?

So many wires plugged into me,
life support for my body and mind.
Two in my ears deliver
waves of Vicoden to help me
sleep two dozen hours a day,
sedate the nightmares in wait
outside my door.
A wire into my hands shocks
them into seizures, moving
mountains, parting oceans, creating
worlds that can’t be found
beyond the edges of the universe.
Fiber-optic wires plugged into my eyes allow
me to see the entire world: every
alley, every gutter, every package wrapped
in brown paper bag, inside a girl
whose name I know not, whose body
I can trace like the alphabet.

I could pull the wires out, crucify
the legion that has possessed my mind,
my mouth, my heart. I could stand
up and walk out the door.

But the sun is too hot, the sweat
will make me crack. The people speak
in gibberish, they offer me nothing
my dreams haven’t shown me.
My key outside fell into dirt
seven years ago, I won’t get on my knees. It’s not worth the effort.

Through glass gates, through purple doors,
thirteen handshakes, thirteen how are you’s.
“I’m fine” on my march to the cushioned pews
to partake in traditions I caught three years ago,
psalms to a savior I no longer know,
sermons from rich white men I’ve heard before,
words that reap amens and hallelujahs from the choir
and sow stillborn seeds in my stillborn heart.

Through each station, legs drag heavier
toward my place in the church, away from the preachers
who turn from my black cracking lips, away from the elders
who turn from my black crucifix, away from the friends
who turn from my black bleeding heart, away in a corner
that nobody sees, that nobody passes, that nobody knows.

But then she returned Easter Sunday. The choir sang as she slid
beside me. Emerald eyes caught mine and killed the night
with untempered light. From her mouth came six strikes
of the ruby sword that pierced my heart, killed my mind, took my life.
She carried me to the empty chapel, the baptism pool.
Hands and mouth stripped flesh and heart of all shrouds,
her ruby sword blinded eyes and dumbed my mouth.
She ate my flesh, and I ate hers. She drank my love, and I drank hers.
I dove in her water, drowned in her blood, died in her gates,
rose in her arms. The quakes cracked the curtain
of the old temple. She led me through the purple velvet,
back into the light, into the living world, back beneath the Sun.

The world began when emerald twins rained light on night,
unlocked rusty eyes from a dreamless sleep. With one word,
she blew away foliage clogged in my ears, taught my brain
a new rhythm with a lighter pitch. With one touch,
she dove through old sweat and old blood and turned my heart
gold with her ivory wands. Her ruby crown fell onto my head
and for a single divine breath I shared her throne and became king of kings.

I step out the Chevy onto the path
to the door back home. Each step
nudged by the gentle breeze as eyes
grab at any sign of you and catch nothing.

But you might already be inside
in the foyer ready for me to lift you up
and carry you into the bedroom.

I climb the two steps of the porch
and insert the key into the lock
with a surgeon’s touch. It turns.
I inhale. Please be home by now.

As he waded through DVDs in hunt of one with a concert of the Cure,
Jennifer cracked his concentration, strutted with a pack of girls,
all working their eight-hour shifts during his time to shop.
Her eyes turned his toward hers and in a blink shared snapshots
of the months they spoke words without awkward silences,
conversations about the weather and the meaning of life.
Their mouths undressed each other until they stood only in briefs,
even the rouge on their cheeks thrown beside their shoes.

Then he let slip down the final veil. Eyes fluttered away,
out of the room, out of the world, as far from him as the sun
from the dark side of Pluto. Rattling hands dove for her clothes
and cloaked her nakedness. She smiled, fully concealed,
inched toward the door as he kneed forward with a heart storming
for her. He offered it with two hands. She denied it with one.

There, in the aisle, her puppy eyes panted for his attention,
purred against his leg for favor. He rolled his eyes to the DVDs,
but focused on the corner where she stood with a head tipped
downward as her eyes rushed from the light. He tightened
and faked interested in a few DVDs as he stared at her crawl
into the backroom, still until the door snuffed her existence.
Then he stepped out into a rainstorm and showered in it
through the walk to his car eager to return tomorrow.