Issue 105

It’s easy to imagine Day marching alongside those now promoting racial equality, the dignified treatment of immigrants, workers’ rights, pacifism, and income equity.

From the beginning, I wanted to challenge people’s ideas about what religious art could be, to stretch categories and ways of thinking, to show that the artists of our time continue to engage in meaningful dialogue with the great faith traditions—and also that this art is in dialogue with the present moment. It’s unafraid to ask, “Who is my neighbor?”  

The black dog in the yard 
is darkness visible.  

In particular, a can of tomato paste 
which fits in my hand like a roll of bills. 

Not angels, but pale travelers
            through time, come back
Not to condemn or to reverse
            our narrow acts, 

But to remind us, by their soft
            disclosures, what
Is still to come.

I want to go back to Manderley and drag myself up the stairs at midnight. See myself. Pull my baby up through the water from the land of the dead.

In my paradise 

there would be a lot of liquids and could I bask  
unabashed in the breathing  
hammock of myself as a kind of Sweden  

for unrequited fleeing.

It’s easy to imagine Day marching alongside those now promoting racial equality, the dignified treatment of immigrants, workers’ rights, pacifism, and income equity.

My God my God 

      why are you so far from     my groaning 

For the calligrapher, words are always flesh.