That’s how long I’ve been away from the Bible—

grown cotyledon & under-fungus,

gone mottled with microscopic life

like a headstone carrying my name & not.

My back as knotted & gnarled

as whatever binds me to this earth—

finding meaning in housekeeping,

unspooling seventeen-year-old hip-hop verses

dust-free as DNA, & sweeping the sidewalk

while listening to the great myths.

Surely I can remember being a moth.

Surely my past lives come back to me.

A dead aunt once said

she loved me as a girl

in the after-place.

Surely I can drink a vial & live.

Surely the microplastics & privilege

are a clean substitute for communion.

Once, I found a wafer in the basement,

probably consecrated for a funereal house call,

constellations of fuzz and filaments

rising from the blesséd bread.

I had no idea

what all was growing down there,

though I could smell it in my sleep,

& some nights it was almost mint,

& some nights it was almost money,

but mostly it did not want to be named.