Prose and Poetry from Web del SolMorphine Psalm
Find one thousand needles in my hide and remove them
one by one,
lovingly, like a lover dealing kisses. These pins were
kisses of a kind,
secrets my body knew to keep; minuscule tongues of fire.
Pull them out,
just as I pushed them in. Push-pull, angels with arrows,
tending Saint Sebastian.
My soul was thirsty, my tears my meat. You have my portrait:
burning green eyes,
mane of red hair, clutching hands. Of course all this belongs to You,
the body and
its soul skittering out like birds from a wire. Why is my soul cast
in this fashion?
Oh, O, my soul is a lonesome membrane, a yawning place.
I remember You
from childhood, from the butcher shop in my hometown.
I feared carcasses;
You held my hand. Now, a rainstorm could enter me, soak me to
nothing, a gutter-rag.
Your billows go over, a series of lights and darks,
day giving way
to night: a subcutaneous wish-- tiny fingers, mouths singing
O, begging, O,
fill me. My bones take on the morning once more.
Sun shines red
on my face, floating, flushed, engorged like the red
maw of poppy.
