Devotions

All night you pace between our bed and another

room in the house, fetching glasses of water

when you mean shots of gin. The candle

doesn’t catch your naked body—a leg, the cut

of stubble—only the shadow of its leaving,

the whole of you uncontainable like the moon,

its kissable face and its darker chambers.

Mary offers her mangled son, a matchmaker,

from the dollar-store votive by the bed.

(Other nights John the Baptist rolls his eyes at me.)

You’re the one who stayed, or

at least never left. You stay because of hard rain,

or dead magnolia on the drive; or is it custom

for the wounded to care for the wounded?

Where are you? I need a solitary room

with you in it. Wall me in. Lie down on me.

(Originally appeared in Tidal Basin Review)