You in some kitchen with the ceiling
Fan blowing, out there estranged and
Mirroring me, your bare arms lying
On each other, yes like lovers,
A pine tree staring you in the face,
A turkey buzzard swirling over the valley
And you looking out and pretending you know
Why the air comes just to push it around,
The fan like a plucked E-string in your ear,
That thought erased by a bluebird flashing,
The trunk of the oak standing firm
Modeling something we could almost do.
These days, at church, Saint Peter’s, I go
And kneel before Mary, and she stares at me
With her learned wooden eyes. Where
Father Banzen usually stands
Is empty in front of the church. The altar
There is where you are. Where
I am. And if that’s too believable, stupid, lonely, boring, lost,
Then tell me what it was that evening on our drive
From Albany, where you had your knees tucked up
In your arms on the carpeted passenger seat.
Lucinda in the CD player.
And the cornfields and flesh-hued sky whipping past us
As if getting ripped out of where we were going.
And my life whispering anything to me.
I think just now I was wishing for that.
What I wouldn’t want anymore.
Sam Bailey is a PhD candidate in religion at Harvard University and coeditor of Mark: A Journal of Christian Poets.
Photo by Jefferson Sees on Unsplash
