If Mother Theresa Were Found To Be a Child Molester

The paper moon would peel itself away
from its crusty glue axis. The cotton ball
clouds would drop. The fat tummy flowers
would leak magenta and cerulean all over
the wax grass.

Your entire diorama world-view would
fall apart.

There are cut out faces of saints and gods
taped to your poster board faith. They are
stacked and circled in a diagram of holiness.
In the center is your loyal heart. Ready to
climb the rungs.

You leapt out of a woman who prayed before
she even took a sip of water. Her face is pasted
right next to Mother Theresa’s. Your father was
the villain that every good hero story needs.
The dope dealer, the grenade. They play tug
of war on your shoulders.

An old woman once stopped your mother in
an airport and told her you would be a preacher.
Your mother welded this identity to the cufflinks
of your three piece suit. Brushed it through your
velvet hair, poked demons out through your feet.

All you ever wanted was to be good.

When I hold you, honest and dismantled,
all I know of you is good. All I know is a man
that so desperately wants to be sinless he would
go forty days without touching himself. Who curses
himself for thinking of another woman. Drinks
holy wine from little plastic cups because he
believes that molecules can contain blessing.

Your faith is that huge.

When I hold you, you are sinless.

conversations with cardboard barack

1.
you are propped up like a campaign smile
next to my mother’s fireplace. i contemplate
poking a hole in your paper teeth to watch
scared shitless pour out all over our hardwood floors.

2.
did you see the shrines?
she made the most beautiful shrines with glitter
and flags and your face glued like crucifixion
to each altar of Hope.

3.
i signed up for the recession today. i crumbled
up my travel plans, my Be Free In My RV plans,
threw them in the fire and warmed my toes with
their milk and honey smoke. i have a good job
afterall. who am i to be leaping around all faithful like
when there are people cashing their last unemployment
checks and you are holding a press conference in the desert,
your stone tablet blueprints heavy under your arm.

4.
my daughter says you should be president because
a president should be smart and handsome and because
you look kind of like her daddy. she doesn’t like how your
eyes follow her around the living room though.

5.
we are shopping for a cardboard Michelle. we can’t afford
to go out anymore so for entertainment we will cut
designer outfits from construction paper and tape them
to Michelle for each holiday. when we need to remember
that everything is going to be alright, we will bump your fists
together and play songs about change.

6.
i know you saw me crying. every now and then when i realize
you are actually our president, history comes crashing
down on my shoulders and i sob like the time i told my daughter
that only 40 years ago her father and i would have been felons
for marrying outside of our race. like the time the hundred year
old woman told the story about picking cotton to earn the poll tax
to vote for Franklin Roosevelt. i sob like Progress is no longer
just a poster hanging on our wall.

7.
my mother refuses to put you in the recycle bin. even after
the inauguration, she keeps you standing next to the
year-round christmas tree. she says after 8 years of heartbreak
and embarrassment she needs to see you every morning while
drinking her coffee and selling off the last of the shrines on eBay.

love poem for denver

I could be quiet for you.
I could be your open cup,
your student,
your Daniel San.
Mr. Myagi me, Denver.
We could speak in broken bodies,
street steam and heavy swallows of
mountain air. No need for slogans.
Pull the tags from my hip and claim me.
I will let you wet my tongue with splendor
and gulp you down like secrets. No shouting.
No banners. We move the same.
I, too, am a wilderness of street signs.
Teach me how to hold a yellow light in my
palm as easily as a sparrow,
I will slow down for you.

I know others have made promises.
I’ve made plenty of my own, but me and my land
fit like high water pants and its getting awkward.
I want to learn your rules.
Your stop/go method of breath.
Every step I take inside of you feels like the
break beat laughter of a monk. Your finger
runs along my rim and I am a singing bowl.
We make a good fit. We make nice prayers.

If only you would look at me, like you
did in that one parking lot moment. When
winter floated in like used dryer sheets, when
the day had been too long, and you were tired
of carrying the weight of hungry people.
I think you were honest when you said,
“I want to go on long walks with you.”
I think in that moment you were asking me to
drink from you. Like maybe our mouths were
the only lesson plans we needed, the only
place we actually belonged.

spiritual response to terrorism (marianne williamson)

With your thoughts, you can help build a system of spiritual quarantine for terrorists and would-be terrorists.
You don't have to know who they are. The Creator does.
Just do this.
For a minimum of five minutes every day, meditate in the following way:
Pray that anyone even thinking of committing a terrorist act, anywhere in the world, be surrounded by a huge golden egg.
The eggshell is made of the spiritual equivalent of titanium. It is impenetrable. Any malevolent, hateful or violent thought that emanates from the mind of the terrorist cannot get past the confines of the eggshell. Before the violent thought can turn into violent action, it is stopped by the force of this meditative field.
Energetically, the terrorist is quarantined.
On the inside of the egg, see a shower of golden Light pouring from the eggshell into the heart and mind of the terrorist. Pray for your lost brother. See him or her being healed by the force of divine Love, wrapped in the arms of angels, reminded of who he truly is.
Five minutes. Every day. Tell everyone you know.

rapid eye movements

You used to move so fast in my dreams.
A superhero blue, a blur of tongues.
You moved like you wanted me to chase you.
I would run along the dream conveyor belt,
past the drag queens and dancing owls, hoping
to find your waiting mouth.

At some point, you slowed down.
Your skin became warm. Your melodic snores
became Barry White doing Tai-Chi.
We would float in our sleep. You moved like you
wanted me to know you. I awoke feeling like I had
just painted a mural inside your cheek.

I think my dreams became too loud for you. I think
you snuck out through my eardrum, to find someone
who sleeps less emotionally. You move like you have
an apology to whisper. Like it sits in your throat waiting
for me to take it with me, into my vacant midnight.

bismillah

i awoke to a flood
of vowel sounds.
cursive, satin tongues
as fluid as our last kiss.
a scorched earth song
that opened me like a gift.
i couldn’t make out the words
i just knew it was You.

You are the root word
that all of our names come from,
7 billion syllables whispered
in our sleep. some days it’s just
static in our radio hearts.
i want to know a hunger so deep
it turns the dial to Your frequency.
i want to know a language
that sways like the humble tide.
my every breath is kalimah.

(i’ve never felt the need for a broker,
but i’ve never met a prophet i didn’t like.)

fashion an altar that smells
like September, a quiet veil wrapped
around my swollen lips,
cement eyes, fragile ears
the only thing i can lay
before You is questions.

why would i rather count the hairs
on his arm than the jewels in your throne?
why does his voice fill me like iftar?
Insha’Allah, i will crave him no longer.

strip me down to my longing
until it is only Your name i can pronounce
write my sins across my tattered stomach
and remind me they are all just invitations
for salvation

the nickel tour

We always say, excuse the mess.
Even if it is cleaner than usual.

With you, I knew I didn’t need to.
You would recognize the piles of little
paper strips, the brilliant lines salvaged from
other peoples poems, kept like fortunes.

You would see the broken mirrors,
the torn certificates, the thin whispery
ego hanging in the closet and say,
I have these in blue!

It wouldn’t seem strange to you,
that I frame things, like concrete,
funny flavored pizza and night air,
then hang them up as decoration.
I could see it in your picket fence grin.

When you laugh you lean back and lift
one foot off the ground, the gate swinging open.
Your voice is a porch,
your breath the wind chime summer,
I knew we could sip each other.
I just didn’t know it would taste so good.

Your arms formed a living room
around me, my head rested on your sofa chest.
We read all the poems titled Guest,
titled Come Closer, titled Release
and it started to feel like home, like
we might have already finished the tour
but we were just hanging out to see if we
could match up all the pieces.

Or maybe this was just one place
where we didn’t need to dim our shiny insides,
didn’t need to sweep any corners.
We could be dust and magic and tender skin.
We could just walk in, look around and say,

I like your style…

Damn baby, I like your style.