The way

we trek

the plank, the body

to which wings attach

a breeze over, passed through

and we held that, as Life

a rosehip

bubbling water

and called it This

the It

the walk, paused

along the body, plank

latched to miracles

honeycomb

by which we'd fly

with our hands

You wrote

and I sang, steamed

with feet that grew

in distance from the ground

red as eyes closed,

Close to the light.

Do you remember that one hot summer?

...We'd felt a strange pull towards church.

We took a walk in the afternoon with that one sole intent:

To try each church door we passed...  See if we could get in.

We kissed several locks, as the expression goes...

and wondered about the openness of the House of God. 

Then we turned the knob to the Lutheran cathedral, without expectation, and it gave way, and groaned... 

We stepped in.

Between the cool dark hewn boulder walls, we were not sure where we'd landed.

When our sights adjusted, we were in the side chapel... not the church proper.

There was a baptismal font, simple and central.

We eyed its beauty. We couldn't help ourselves and fingered the white marble with silver veins, in the dim light. The sparkling gold fixtures, and plumbing, and the adjacent small service alter led our eyes across the room, further into the dark.

Yes, there was an organ. Along the far wall, its pipes extending overhead. Stunning.

For so small a space, Extravagant; but true. And we didn't dare reach across, to play, lest the noise alert anyone. 

We were conscious of trespassing.

I stood rooted to my spot, lifting only my lids to take in the magnificence of the place. Looking up, the ceiling was celestial, vaulted, as in the undercurve of a dome.

A cool breeze was whipping the painted cirrus clouds over pristine cobalt. 

There were no putti, only us... floating on clouds, ephemeral.

Rose of Sharon anointment in the air... I determined to make that scent mine. 

Ours.

Maybe we felt like making love. 

You drew away from us with respect for me and propriety, letting go of my hand...

and I gave you space as you leaned into a pew. Praying for our future no doubt. I watched your profile, silhouetted from the light filtering behind, falling warm... in reds, yellows and blues... down from the high stained-glass windows. 

If you didn't have so much esteem for me, you would have laid me down nude across that marble alter and we would have been sanctified, skin of our skins pressing deep, orificed... mouth to mouth to mouth to mouth. 

I didn't pray. It has something to do with my father's death, and you said, once outside, in the sunlight, that you understood though you wished it were otherwise, almost. 

Almost, because that would rewrite our script, wouldn't it...

 ...and would we have it any other way?

I went back to that church. On my own.

I knelt in the place as I remembered it. My profile aligned with the outline left in memory, fitted as we are, now.

I took note of the stations of the cross. Heavy and notched. I hadn't noticed them then. I made the customary blessing: in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Time passing, as it does.

Bowing my head... I am grateful you are doing as well as you are in your job, and for all your successes. It's why you are not with me for the moment. 

The place doesn't have the coolness it did.

It has heat, this time. 

I don't talk to God. We have moved passed that in personal relationship.

We sit, in each other's presence. Silent.

Me in him. Him in me.

I ask for nothing.

My notion of sin has changed accordingly. 

The very concept is the Sin itself, and all It touches, consequentially tinged. 

It was my high school creative writing teacher Ms. Specter who once told us a pathos ladened drama of her maiden trip to Greece, in which a Greek romantic had climbed up the trellis to her balcony and stood naked before her in his torched desire— horrified when she turned on the light!-— having entered through the wrong window. And she said with lascivious grin, if you don't know what it means to "smell a man, then sorry!" ...giggling, Victorianly. 

I recall this because, suddenly I smell Man, made flesh. The scent of arousal so strong, I sense it through clothing and across distance. My eyes closed.

I lift my countenance, still kneeling. Your tallness means that I am face-to-face with your pressing invitation. Wordlessly, your eyes say a man should steal away from daily obligations once and again to meet his mate, half-way.

I unclasp my hands and unbuckle and unbutton you. The zipper descends partly by some invisible encouragement... as with the Will of nature. 

Have we had this fantasy before?

I know you like to watch me... work you over.

Hand to mouth.

It's not a hunger. It's indulgence, like ice cream. I linger on your hardness as the treat that it is, and not some vegetable side dish, pushed around at a tiresome formal dinner party, on the tick of company dime. 

You don't dare touch me. It's not part of your paradigm, yet, in this sacred setting.

I touch myself for you. Skirting like seashell, parting at the rim, ruffled. It's pink and green with cream. You picked the dress yourself and pause to admire its full effect...

And the glowing ecstasy in my face.

I guide your idle arm toward my body, and you begin to explore it like a parched man upon a deserted isle, lapping supple hills up to the laced thongs. You know all at once what it means when a woman fills the cup of your hands, with abundance, in a movement overflowing like a sonata.

It's a boundary in this sanctuary that you thought we would not cross, but you've accepted that a different kind of holiness is possible, in the eyes of God.

Or maybe it's because we are already consummated.

I don't disconnect. The pulse of pleasure is too strong. You run your lips in waves along my slender right arm and reach for the center of my body, moist and hallowed. You ease a strong thumb to clit and press forefinger across the petals of the slit, soft and melted, slipping in gently to check my pulse as it quickens to your tender manly touch.

I can hear you call for me, soundlessly, in this holy space:

Come for me, baby...

...and it's instantaneous, my release prompting yours, and I draw your essence down my throat taking in every last drop, as pure white chocolate syrup, till you are emptied.

I finish. And cross myself in your spirit.

I am alone, and the chill of the place is as it was... that one hot summer.

I gather my purse and fix my dress.

I'm glad we came, even if, only by myself... this time.

distance immaterial

our equator under

this

I stand

in the meridian

of our shadow

where longitude

bisects

indivisible

North & South

and all the latitude

standing

with arms outstretched

gives...

a reach so wide

it wraps around us twice

immeasurable

that's how

we cut

on the bias

the fabric of Love

I will stand

under

I will make Time

I will make Space

even if I have to

make a hole

myself

what

I felt

at the core

molten

is not past tense

and if there is

some

question

at the end

it's cause

we are still

wondering

about...

...retracing

our beginning

Now I may be done poor, but I ain't stupid.

Maybe it is I don't know how to read and write, all proper, but I can make the sign of cross and my signature on paper's same as anybody else. The important part, see, is that I understand—and that, more than I let on.

When they tapped me on the street, the Mi'lady and Lord, wanted only that I's should be capable to adequately sign, with scratch marks like so, X.

In the anonymous old traditional way that signifies a living soul was present: Here.

Mi'Lord, he says emphatically, that t'aint necessary I know my spelling, I need only make that universal slash slash on that line right there. See?

Well, I says shrewdly, I don't have my specs, and this to buy me some time to look over the contractual of it, short and to the point as it is, while I sees Mi'Lord give a loving turn of the mouth to the Mi'Lady, as he pats my shoulder and says warmly the "document" signifies that I am entitled to some quick income and free meal, for a short stint, I need only X on the line below, to show that I agree to attend the funeral banquet of the honorable VIP from nth O'clock for no more than one hour or so...

so long as I partake fully in the offertory meal.

I maybe street urchin, but I weren't born yesterday.

I says, affably, where do I sign? squinting at Mi'Lady as she points with plump gilded nail. Bumbling, I make my chicken scratch, signifying anonymous witness, nameless, faceless— all ready, willing and able—to be plucked off.

The dearly departed is to be buried in a fine plot on Ackers Point, they cheers in chorus, the service painstakingly called a Plein-Air. And they lift a noble finger, over the hill just yonder, can't miss it and don't be late, as it starts in a few minutes. Ta tah!

The offertory meal I know is the supposed rightin' of wrongs indulged in by the deceased, dame or bloke. And I as human supplicant am to eat this anti-waffer so that excess Sin may be forgiven.

Twasn't enough Jesus died and rose again.

Twasn't enough the sinner went to church, for show, and tell, at Confession.

This here contract, that I can read well enough, mumbo jumbo, says I will take upon myself, this hungry body, the food and loathing that would otherwise weigh down the soul and keep it from eternal rest. The Sins worth measured in flour. I wonder something about the yeast of evil, and the unleavened, and turn to the hill.

You'll note, I signed.

My tethers, reassuring Mi'Lord and Mi'Lady that I am well qualified, needy and charitable. What they don't knows is that I have even in these rags, pockets and folds sheltering vermin, and they have overlooked, as snobbery does, the feathered cohort that perches on my shoulder.

Dismissed as dumb blackbird of a batty old lady, soon to die as well.

We arrives timely. My feathered companion's well organized socially and signals his compatriots with a few good kracks and kows.  We go to our work. I breaking bits quickly and scattering them, among bird, rat and mice. It takes a good while for anyone to catch on. Minutes, but tis enough. For us it's short work, the birds are flying in steady, five, seven, in patches, hoards altogether... Peppering the ceremony.

There is fear and a consternation.

The same Mi'Lord and Mi'Lady are rushing aghast to my seated person and shooing at the flock that's gathered.

"What the Devil are you doing?! a person must eat this food, not crows!!!"

I know, and I spread my open hands broad and empty...

Like I've no idea what's going on here...

Then I make a show of picking my yellow jagged teeth with a sharp black quill.

I says: "Maybe somebody with better tooth or bigger stomach could take over... " ?

The flock, heavy with feed, rises, menacing beaks and blimp bellies. And Mi'Lady shrieks, Mi'Lord grabs his gun to stop the offertory from getting away...

She is sobbing: "But... We don't eat crow, we don't eat crow...!"

I know.

My name is Cat Shat.

And how do you do?

I've resurfaced from the underground

in Steampunk top hat and coattails...

How very nice to meet you, here...

Is that a whiff of patchouli...?

or is it poor man's Catnip?

I'm sharpening my claws on this fine gall post

and I'm licking my palms, like one does

before the grease is laid on.

Like twisting the lid

of the cookie jar

back off.

Say, what can I do for you,

Tonight?

that's the question. Right?

You need... a light?

A hand? ...a short knife...

or plastic stretch elastic...

You need... Some venom...

slight douse of something to intoxicate your night,

Why, my, oh, my pocket watch says it's almost 00!!

So hurry.................... . . . . . . . . up a little

I turn tails rather quickly, it's a vulgar trick,

don't you know it,

if you can play, and pay, and not catch me

all out of breath

that morbid tax!

...the sudden death

Sleepy.... . . .

what's the matter?

Cat's got your pen?

What's that drop... small... 'n dark...

like a raisin...

I see you're up and running again... . .

Tickled? ahem. Pooh.

I'll have to try better then.

To hang my honor in shame.

See the unworn cap, left nigh?

the hallway hook calls my name.

It's a silence most profane,

tilt of brim, half to deny...

To hang my honor in shame.

Of all good deeds, most mundane

sits the pillbox by, and bye—

The hallway hook calls my name.

And calls the dark like a Dame,

to our dust that now doth fly,

"To hang my honor in shame!"

One fine gesture might remain,

to yet beg the conscience, why:

the hallway hook calls my name?

As all the worlds' stage proclaim

indecision's plateau's high—

To hang my honor in shame...

the hallway hook calls my name.

It maybe that there is no other passing like that of a parent. Except maybe a child.

I don't believe in ghosts. And I'm not concerned with what we can see, or not, but what we feel. I am already flawed in vision, lacking Gran's intuition, and Great-great-great-grandma's instinct. Always a child, I speak of spirit, passing. I cannot call it Death, Mother. You, yourself, taught me contra wise, the trailing off into the corners of the globe with your web.

Oxymomical profusion.

Mother is passing-- passing through. I through you, and you through me, divisible, in effect, and affect. Each of us, to nurture, our nature. Transparent, and opaque, a mirror of moving water.

You paused with circular needles, rain drops caught in the cool firelight of the moon, and asked What? in silence, knowing we could knit anything, a shroud even, but it would never be the right size to cover the length of us in the long haul. Flies and mites might be trapped and confused, for lack of fore or after thought. Like dust.

You nod off, into daydream:

"Death exists, in everything, always, for those who have never known Living."

I follow through to Mom, fully awake, as she drifts. Indeed, with Death we remain unacquainted, until personally introduced, like to Antimother:

"O, hi, Holiness," and we are one, in wave or handshake. The end all.

We pass, transparent... a part of the barren. Where there is perhaps only dissociated thought. The antonym of the womb. Both dark and secure. Still in a mothership.

Every being in existence carries on, beside itself. Cries, because of the living we ourselves are looping together (in or out of step), for joy or grief or uncertainty... eventually motherless momentarily, if only in perception... finding itself.

The Living... it lives, they live, even those insentient things live... in our animation. The lil bit of self that is invested, moves through, as our growing child. Clinging to the coparent inside ourselves. Animism, yes; the offspring of ourselves.

It has little to do with parenthood, as conception. Rather, that is a cloak, invisible. Adoption, I know now that that is central. To own the title, the ship and its lookouts. The periscope through which flows acceptance, for the soul we cover or uncover from the surface. We look out into the worlds, before our us, as transparent— needing our image, gesture, form, and word. We can carry, or bring to terms some buds, in a dark family wood, a stand of witnesses, barely webbed together in the canopy, borrowing the stars, as heirlooms.

We are rooted and belong only as much as we choose to open ourselves to a zephyr Matriarch that will whisper to those who are listening, twinkle, twinkle....

Holy mother of all, I know you have something for me... the labor of emotion...

...Life and its afterbirth.

Sincerely,

Rent