print previewback TRACI BRIMHALL
Self-Deliverance with a Line from George Herbert
I want a body with another body to be the soul
in paraphrase, the heart in pilgrimage, plummet
sounding heaven and earth. I haven’t seen the moon
in a week. Maybe it’s time to give penance a try,
time to translate the saint’s bones from one reliquary
to another. Time to wander and worship in a new far-off.
Can I say it? I am of a darker nature, one that might ask
a man to do something worth repenting. Say, a harness.
Say, a whip. Say, pleasure any way I want it. I want a body
with another body to say more than words. The light
furrowing of nails on shoulder blades to signify you
and forever and yes. A hand on a breast to signify: I want
you like a pious woman wants God’s middle finger to scrape
the psalm from her tongue. The child I carry turns in the dark
of its first loneliness, thumb in its mouth, learning
what it must. I’d like to think that love for one kills desire
for all others. I’d like to think my doubts prove I hunger
for the eternal, but I am wet and Sapphic like any good
sinner, all sad cry and gentle astonishment that a body
with another body burns brief and desperate as prayer. 
Self-Deliverance with a Line from George Herbert
Translation Theory