sometimes couldn’t hope to turn  water hardly  pooled dark matter

made light fade  soapscum circling drain  anti-skylark vespers  baptism

failed to rinse  almost unnamable the lust  plummeted through the temple

of my harrowed ghost  nocturnes no aromatherapeutic body wash could actually

didn’t know where to turn  how detonated my dandelion head  without any angel

worth speaking of  ganglia gone awry  in clinical terms  serotonin smithereened

someone unseen had stolen near  leaned inside-close & scattered every flyaway seed

could you recollect what gusted  remember not to forget  no posies but ashes

ashes they all fall down  no worst there is none  insofar as I ever  understand that

never did I truthfully want to die  unto death I was sick of wanting to

if home you see requires flesh  when ‘inside’ feels like hell on earth  where on earth

should heaven ever be found  Virgen de los Dolores  even if I made a map

on my skin the razor lined red like the alphabet footprints of your beloved son’s very own

Aramaic words (albeit thrice translated) appear in many a Bible  minus legend

minus compass-rose  in extremis was somewhat synaesthetic  no-man-fathomed

a third plus some of a rosary ago  where fore meets head  thumb-drawn ashes

form a cross  preacher’s son + gay man  laid out on the terracotta floor

until the horse my body was stopped trying to gallop through a wall

were it the mind  window if said soul  pitched past

pitch of grief  absent any sister to help me find wherever a river is

save my long-dead Jesuit brother  mesquites instead of yews  I have to

make a place  Toi Derricotte wrote for my body  in my body I begged

whispers thousands yes  dust let my cry

circa wayward  in the dust there

prodigal now  approximately peregrine

was the dust  there hope a gall

I could but barely  managed to turn

(could a preposition faith)  toward

flung this breathblown

dust mouthful unto

come was thee