Passionfruit

My lapsed-Catholic English prof
laughed: “The passionfruit was Eden’s
tree – it was Adam and Eve’s passion
that God forbade!” A silly joke–
original sin and sex and all that–
and she had it wrong besides. The Jesuits
who began this rumor knew
only one passion, and it
was and is the passion of thorns, nails,
betrayal borne by the suffering
Christ, who hangs low on a tree
so that all may taste.

Day Six

That morning the sun
rose so slowly – millions
of years in each degree
of sky – and God
commanded to flourish
every flora and fauna
after its kind:
the thirteen-legged
sponge, algae forests,
ferns eight meters across,
ichthyosauri, giant
sloths, dire wolves, and
microbes upon microbes.
As each species rose
to the fullness of its
life, God applauded:
with slow, steady claps, he
drew to a close
every delicate creature
who could never bear
humanity’s rough dominion.

Sonnet

That day our souls were sealed, we spoke a line
     Mysterious in holy power, and strong
     Enough to push our naïve love along:
“I my beloved’s; my beloved mine.”

We poured ourselves together and drank deep
     Of joy and suffering; we emptied our souls
     Into a mutual cup that hopes to hold
All future mixtures that we’ll have to keep.

This doubled life sometimes appears far worse
     Than singleness: I bear hurt, sorrow, pain
     That are another’s burden, yet I gain
A doubled blessing, not a doubled curse:

When simple words do nothing, weakness needs
The strength of tied-together broken reeds.

SUPPLANTER

for James, brother of the beloved disciple

Fishing

At the altar she bound me and cut.
My blood was collected,
my skin and fat burned,
the rest of me eaten in the cafeteria at lunch.
I left that church
because I didn’t like the worship.
The whores in the Holy City’s branch library
took up the rest of my week: rolls of disposable
camera film recorded my fun, which
I tossed overboard twelve miles out.

An Art-angel appeared to me as if in a dream.
Her parents disapproved of our lunches.
The season turned, and the leaves
in the library went red and yellow like
the Holy City’s stoplights. Two of the leaves
had been written by me. I invited
the Art-angel to my old church: she
didn’t like the service either, so we started a
home-based study group that read my leaves.

Then her parents killed her (my ship
was undocking anyway) and I never
saw her again. My ship next anchored
at a school two million miles from home; we
dropped our nets for a haul of paperbacks and whores.
We laid them in the sun to dry and
then burned the whole lot.

Jairus’ Daughter

In the cargo hold the Masque was held under
strobe lights and smoke. We were splashing
to old REM when the doors locked down.

Love, dressed as Pocahontas with an ax, bobbed
for apples till the apples bobbed off
in four feet of water.

Sloth, his monitor tuned to Baywatch,
shorted out and drowned
in five feet of water.

I was Knowledge, a blind old doughboy
with clipped wings, and I chewed fruit-
flavored candy that Sloth had dropped.

Six feet of water
compressed the smoke to the ceiling.
I chewed and tried to breathe.

The Daughter came late in her resurrection fishtail:
she swam through walls and breathed brine by choice.
     Her mouth brought oxygen,
          a song of fresh air.
     Her arms and tail had strength
          that I did not have.

Transfiguration

I saw a pelican floating
     dead on the top of the sea.

The Daughter carried me up
     through the spell of its blood,

A silhouette of wings and beak
     spread solid black on the wavering

surface. I reached up
     so close to air and touched
ten thousand people singing “Just As I Am.”
I thought, “I can’t go down to this, it’s so
cheesy,” but the preacher’s talk compelled
me it was now. I ascended the aisle
to the pulpit and cross          the pelican
     flapped once and was up
The preacher turned me to the singers and said,
“Michael has made a decision today.”

Gethsemane

I used Romans 3:23 to adjust
his neck bolts but

his head fell off in the Student Union,
me talking Bible and him resisting.
“But God loves you,” I yelled – he frowned like he
wasn’t sure, so I yelled it again. “God
loves you! Why can’t you believe it?” We closed
with prayer and I never saw him again.

For Spring Break I went to Florida where
the sun grows out of sinkholes not
to drink but to be with a man
named Pastor Cruz who gave food
to migrants. At night he sang
songs to Christ in Spanish
          En la cruz, en la cruz
          yo primero vi la luz
and I hated it: I was supposed to be preaching not
building shelves for rice or hauling water to pickers bent over strawberries
a pelican lay dead beneath the olive trees

Back at port I paid good coin for the whore,
but on the bed was the Daughter instead,

her fishtail dripping all over everything.
     “Surrender, surrender, beloved. Take
     rest in my arms and let me work.
     In me there is peace, in me strength, in me
     comforting words, satisfying drink.
     In me there is life. Surrender,
     surrender, surrender, and die.
     My arms will hold you up.”

Jerusalem

You were hidden in the Holy City’s libraries.
How could you not hear my shouts?
We started in Benton after seeing my parents.
Help me read your will and not these cheap paperbacks.

You danced alone to that REM wail.
How could you meet me so late?
We stayed in Cincinnati with your family.
Help arrived in time for some.

Yesterday a pelican snatched a fish in midleap.
How can I live and not laugh?
We stopped in Mitchell, South Dakota, and saw the Corn Palace.
Help me find a motel closer to Yellowstone.

Yellowstone sucks if you only drive through.
Help me with this water, will you?
We saw New Jerusalem and glimpsed the Lamb of God.
Huevos rancheros in the morning, vi la luz at night.

You didn’t make reservations? Don’t worry about it.
Help me. Help me walk just two miles.
We crossed the border into a new country.
How will you astonish me today?