Poetry
Photo by Elijah Mears on Unsplash
Real name
One-Cent wasn’t his real name,
just the name taped on him
by authorities who had their own purpose,
taped on the wood of his forehead
at a slight angle, trueness unimportant.
Tell yourself anything you want.
Don’t tell me you love me.
I am an unburied body for you,
the odor of rot to come.
Call me Stone. I am the metal ore egg
you want to split
like an atom.
Blessed mud! Blessed screech!
One-Cent keeps to the road before him.
They call him Penny Candy,
Loose Change, Lincoln Head.
They call him late for the photo,
late for the garden, late for the curtain.
Blessed finger! Blessed black mole!
Blessed water!
First heartbeat to last, debt and death,
One-Cent makes do with hints and guesses.
By the Traffic Building,
by the cement river edge,
let Sister Mother clasp me in her arms,
though she is younger and as sinned against.
Let us release our tether and rise on wind,
the beat of blood and breeze,
bitterbright epiphanies.
One-Cent is allergic now to masquerade prose.
He knows the darkness of words
and the light.
A branch off a foreign tree.
Blessed grit! Blessed sinner!
To understand
It was given to One-Cent to understand:
She was his mustard seed.
Her leaven lightened his breathing.
She sowed good seed.
Her net into the limitless sea caught him.
She was a treasure in a field,
a pearl of great cost.
Her choice at end of day was to hire him.
She settled accounts, gave a feast,
went on a journey.
Her lamp was lit for him.
Glory
One-Cent knew his name.
Declare the glory — firmament, handywork.
Tabernacle of the sun.
From the darkness of the womb,
One-Cent knew his name,
in the forming of his sinews,
in the knitting of his bones.
Explosive birth.
Day unto day — speech.
Night unto night — wonder.
Race run.
One-Cent followed the line
through all the earth to the end of the world,
to the end of the heaven.
Nothing hid,
not his name,
nor the face of the deep.
Law and testimony.
Faults cleansed.
On his dung heap, One-Cent
knew his name wise and simple,
true and righteous — more than gold,
than fine gold, honey sweet.
Words of my mouth,
my heart.
He never repented his knowledge.