Church of the Penny Poker Redeemer

I learned to read a man’s bluff

stacking pennies, pushing the ante forward

and fanning out my cards.

Some sin is acquired.

My father never let me win.

 

When the beer was drained

I practiced being Jesus—him the sleepy

cross, stiff arms. I draped my limp wrists

over his, trying redemption on.

 

Apparition in Diesel

I don’t have you

but sometimes

I do—

diesel fuel

trailing through

my nostrils,

seductive curves

of a wrench’s silver claw

on some man’s counter,

meant to clasp

and take apart.

The homeless man I pass

at Howard and Mt. Royal

brings me to tears—

I fear I’ve turned

a page too fast on you

and seen you begging

or dead.

The siren song—

at what year

isn’t the vintage perfect?

 

Cleaving Athena

The first desires he felt might have been love,

though without the grace of translation

it was all grunts

 

and so desire transmuted itself into a girl, and now

a smaller baby girl, who also had desires but no language

and so she cried.

 

There were other girls who cried, but because of deeper fears:

the fear of being only half of something, and if they loved

their fathers.

 

How Athena’s heart must have ached. Or if the whole heart

of her felt full, like last Wednesday when we stuffed ourselves

with blackened chicken

 

from Mary’s Deli on the corner, and walking the block back

was such a feat but if that was as bad as it got,

we’d take it.

 

Waiting to cross the street, our conversation was paused

by an infant, shrilly screaming as her stroller was stopped

for the rush of traffic.

 

Not hungry or tired or pained, she just wanted to go,

to feel the bouncing of the stroller and know that it meant

she was moving.