Our Lady of the Ruins
We exhausted ourselves
with every available pleasure,
tied ourselves to chairs,
naked and disobedient. Their bodies dusted
with the sex of flowers
Inside our bodies, it was night.
God knew what we asked for it is the bees that call me
but would not return our shame.
from the bottom
One day the walls wept your image. of the lake
When we painted over it,
your face bled through,
appeared to us in the image of our mother, No one remembers me
but penitent, adoring. not even the rain
You should know we are guilty.
We raised more demons Once, before I was named
than we could lay down. I lived as a woman
So what if we’re haunted.
So what if we’ve stopped dreaming.
Nothing followed me
We are sensitive to the tides
and the lighthouse burning
for ships that never arrive. I could name every plant
The rumors are true. Delirium found us. knew the weather
before it announced itself
We oiled and kissed a stranger’s burnt feet.
We held pigeons under water
until their gnarled hearts stopped My hands picked peaches
fluttering in our hands. kneaded dough
dug in fresh black earth
When we unwound their intestines
looking for the message,
we found blood hollow bones. Now they push mushrooms
through the loam
Don’t tell us we’re too late. beneath a fox’s skull
We swear we’re not saved.
Now they lead ants
We are ravished and unclean. to the dead mouse
We left blood in the bowl for you
and the tips of our fingers. I was vanishing
but now I return
We forsake the eastern star.
Take us by the hair. In a dress sewn
Lead us past from my shroud
the ignorant light,
past a God who threatens I will meet you
to love all that we are. where the cross burns 