poem: altar

bread and wine
flesh and bone
withered lilies
weathered letters
begging for mercy
tethered heartstrings
pieces of things
I have broken

upon my altar
sweet offerings
a turn of my wrist
I'll not test her
hypothesis, lest
she see my human
weakness, lose
faith in me,
take flight,
leaving behind
both me and
my benign
simplicity

pierced, I climb
off my cross, and
the fourth day
finds me
dead as ever
my spine will be
dug up someday,
a first class relic
a fossil, a knicknack
a child's puzzle,
osso bucco, poorly plated
Jacob's Ladder, writ large
Alighieri's version
of the long climb down

focus slowly, I
move fast, fluttering,
striking, caressing,
touching, beckoning,
a mudra, a poem
read to ears deaf,
and eventually
an upturned palm

kiss its pure
white center
bite hard
taste
what it takes
to be mine