I was an agnostic my entire life,
but I admired Catholic design.
I adored the statues of Christ in Andalusia.
You could hear the creaking of
wooden roses in his eyes.
His mouth was always open,
and if you pressed
your ear against it, you would hear
whispered promises
of eternity his eyes betrayed
I didn’t believe in eternity,
I just liked its taste at the outmost
tip of the tongue.
I was the one net along
the boat in Galilee
empty of fish,
a net gliding beautifully
along the water’s surface,
never totally submerged,
content in weightlessness
and the un-miraculous.
I remember a time in Nerja, Spain.
A cold rain was blowing in from the hills,
swept along by Celtic wind
thick in its green pride,
reaching the sea with some declaration
of wild genius.
A priest stepped out of the church
and stretched out his hands to feel
the quality of the rain,
as if it was saffron for paella.
He caught the rain with balance
in his arms, a statue of justice
for the passersby running over sand
with English newspapers over their heads.
I dreamed that night
an old fisherman slipped on cobblestone
and was swept away to the Mediterranean
where, before the tourists saw the crime,
the locals dropped him on his boat with
an anchor for a rosary and
pushed him out to a sea
that was blue yesterday
and green today.
The priest watched the boat to the
end of the horizon, where it rose
in Fata Morgana and bent in earth’s
wavering eternity.
And now this hospital room.
Unplugged wires everywhere
seeking their place in the galaxy.
The body shutdown,
the warm tongue, slow and heavy,
licking the back of my heart.
The air conditioner blowing
on the side of my neck,
the last breath of God.
A room with a smoker’s smile.
A faith with a smoker’s cough.
Baptized against my will in infancy,
last rites delivered against
my will in old age,
two souls washed away in
some drying river’s insomnia.
This deserved change I now receive
for the soul bill I broke in my youth.
What remains of my faith
circles this bed like a seagull circles
one spot in the sea for hours,
searching for eternity,
the smallest fish.
