near prayer.

You parted the sea—your collarbones have become the horizon
and the smile on your lips radiates a warmth stronger than the
February sun, I suppose that means you’re home to a second sun too.

There’s a certain quality to you—the ability to imbue holiness in others,
you make me desire religion in the worst way, I share the hunger of a stray dog,
hungry for God/hungry for love/you awake something primal in me
and it terrifies me.

Even still, looking past the way you domesticated fear, gnawed fingers to bone,
you make redundant all bridges to you, Switzerland in war.
I hate the way we root around in our wounds, never letting the pain settle,
prolonging the recovery, all for a moment of clemency—
we discover our proximity to one another;
segments of the same tangerine,
you—underripe (the past)
I—rotting (the future).

All this to say—we were never linear, temporarily finding peace with the
asynchronous words we worship, tidal in nature,
chewed in the beak of the dove that will never leave the nest,
that will never take flight. A martyr that will never meet God.

What do you call religion without prayer?
What do you call a wound without blood?
What do I call you?

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