Inquisitor

For the love of God, stop screaming. 

I am sending you to Heaven. 

 

Through a cobweb of Italian rain, 

fine and white as lace, you will go unto the King 

 

in raiment of black and gold, ember and sizzling. 

You will be cleansed of sin and hair and flesh— 

 

you will be valley-bone dry, ligaments knitting 

like a cat’s cradle. In the sky-less Heaven 

you will praise my name. 

 

I do not need an explicable God. I only need a God 

who looks like you—bright vertical, 

 

fat-sparking saint, beard alight, a thousand hairs 

crawling, Heaven-bright, back to your skin. 

 

Tonight, blooded between my red sheets, 

I will still smell your oily residue 

 

and I will burn.