Articles

In much the same way as acute myocardial infarction becomes the final fatal symptom of coronary artery disease, my daughter’s leap from the Golden Gate Bridge was the final fatal symptom of the depression, the melancholia, the psychological distress she’d suffered from most of her life.

how
many hours did my ear sojourn to the rhythm of her yellow tongue?

Death sitting bored there, yawning. All that jive.

I am most excited about the exotic delight of oyster crackers, a delicacy I’ve eaten only in this basement at the annual Hebron Lutheran Church Oyster Supper.

Had Lazarus been in hell,
surely Jesus would have left him there.

I will become, dust

Perhaps our sons are signs, agitating the distracted
to gaze at the frescos restored to the apse

I was confronted with the reality that a perfect church could not exist, that the leaders that I had grown up revering were flawed and very human.

The following year I reentered the studio to die. After fifteen days—unable to eat or sleep, my mind desperately trying to give solace to my broken life—I finally collapsed and gave up my life in radical surrender.

With a mechanical click,
The light ceases,
Leaves you deep-keeled in darkness.