a patch for bees. About early morning pearl clouds.

You might pause, reply with a brochure: bodies

bathed to the waist in cartoon flames, praying

to One who abandons them in foretold fury.

How a downy woodpecker searches and strikes;

blue jays’ solid-bodied tree trunk landings;

memories held by paving stones. A schoolgirl

balances coffee on an open book, riding the city bus.

I’ll pause for each of these. You show me a picture:

woman with lips sewn shut for speaking her faith.

Proof, proof, you claim, of them, them, the dark,

the opposite of us, us. Yes, yes, I know. I know:

that approach to torture is not our heritage style.

The people we resemble do things differently.

Modest, what I’d live for. Maple leaves rendered to red dust

by a thousand soles. Pet python, olive cream, rides

in a net bag slung across a shoulder. Flattened chipmunk

an offering for assembled crows. Paper money filling the hat

of subway singer Lonesome Phil. Make all this unreal,

call your preferred tormentor, if you must. What I most fear

are worship’s whips. Self-roused agonies, rages at the podium:

our terrified, solitary minds and their closet monsters.

Let private excruciations be the target of your prayers.

Turned from your mirror and praying, turn back to it.

Watch the face of your God through your own face.

You image my body in seared skin and sizzling bones.

You speak my torment for me. Speak for your own.