Catastrophe Is Next to Godliness

Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe.

Like everyone else, I want a storm I can dance in.

I want an excuse to change my life.

The day A. died, the sun was brighter than any sun.

I answered the phone, and a channel opened

between my stupid head and heaven, or what was left of it. The blankness

stared back; and I made sound after sound with my blood-wet gullet.

O unsayable-O tender and divine unsayable, I knew you then:

you line straight to the planet's calamitous core; you moment moment moment;

you intimate abyss I called sister for a good reason.

When the Bad Thing happened, I saw every blade

And every year I find out what they've done to us, I shed another skin.

I get closer to open air; true north.

Lord, if I say

Bless the cold water you throw on my face

,

does that make me a costume party. Am I greedy for comfort

if I ask you not to kill my friends; if I beg you to press

your heel against my throat-not enough to ruin me,

but just so-just so I can almost see your face-