Beloved Litany

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Beloved, I was not

          virginal when you knelt at the iliac

                    crests and hummed. Biblically,

                              we’re doomed for.

                                        How shall I clean

                                                  the yolk of us off the floor?

                                                            A little rummage. Stench

                                                                      of peaches. Crisp the clearing

                                                                                when I come to:

                                                                                Milky weep of my eye.

                                                                      My rude health. You kneel,

                                                            are good to me again.

                                                  How ordinary: light.

                                        Its currency, dust.

                              This economy of living

                    not in ruin — Not rapture —

          Lord, ridiculous,

our mercy, these hands.