The trembling heart pierced
by the jagged torn edge
of the heart.
Life most traumatically against itself.
Evil strikes at the tenderest scandal
of God, to be embodied
in each, and subjects the body
to the horror of its denial.
We murder ourselves
slowly, viciously, in the soft places,
in the papers every day.
We are torturers and can’t pretend
otherwise. And so profoundly other-
wise you are our victim
and victor, for in your love before
you climbed this hill you climbed
into us, wrapped yourself in us,
and in love will not leave that home,
though it be pierced and battered,
brutalized. You bleed, we are not
satisfied, we kill again. You bleed
pure love. There is no other hell
than this, no higher throne for you,
no greater evil you overpower.
You choose no other place to live,
no lesser love to bear than to occupy
our self-mutilated souls and fill them
with yourself, your love, your peace,
until your light transforms all darkness,
hell’s unmade, and fear itself is
euthanized, till each of us is a failed
emperor, powers spent, with memories
of sin, now dead, forgiven, buried, ready
to be raised.
—April 19, 2019