Sixth Poem

The meme about new baby 

announcements: good luck
On the apocalypse companion I guess
I am waiting on a pregnancy test

Three minutes to remember how it felt 

To really pray, kneeling in the church

Before it burned, eight years old 

Devoted, fervent, bathed in dusty light

Now it’s reading stars and shuffling cards

Finding lines of poetry to repeat to myself

Listening to the same song until 

I’ve memorized the breaths

The mathematics of making something 

Holy, genuflecting to my body, a church 

Vestibule, sanctuary, apse

In a year where everything is on fire

My faith in anything is running on fumes

Somehow enough molecules exist

To keep me going 

Is that hope?

To want this as much as I do

Feels like falling in love

Breaking my heart like the glass

Around something precious

Or an acid peel melting layers away

Burn off the excess

Believing what’s left is 

Worth it