sologolos

The wave,
poised like a writer's cramp,
overhangs a pismiry rogation
of pilgrims on a green bridge. Look --
a parasol or two, a red chop,
something like Golgotha or Fuji smoking
on a jaded horizon. Their song, halfway
between a boatman's yo and ho,
part miserere nobis, part deo gratias,
hovers on the wind.

Providence, brethren,
is slippery. The stuck hand
drips something like sweat or musk
and the boards, steeped in it,
glaze and slicken above a fathomless
and auricular forebog
the color of phantoms and quicksand.
Sentence, reprieve; datum, deodatus;
figure, ground --
if you remember anything from this sermon,
let it be the hard and practiced pew
knuckling you and your backbone awake.

12.26.11