my penance is to take the Medicine. Cultivate the Nectar

press on the heart and belly and ride the Chariot

look up into the Face of God, my Prayer and the answer to it

the sin is that he came to the holy union with me in a profane way without fully choosing me or it, and I agreed

At-one-ment

dog on a motorcycle in ecstasy, tongue hanging out

brown leather collar with silver studs

someone seated behind him driving the thing

to truly shift focus from the projections

we have to cut the roots and watch them dissolve

everyone is on the spectrum somewhere, gross to subtle

density and refinement, emotionality and stoicism

ability to see into the subtle dimensions, or not

I read books backwards, or not at all

black haired boy at the swimming pool with milky white skin

flapping hands and fluttering eyelids

my mother is a saint, there are no martyrs here

she cares for, protects and advocates for my father

but also suffers his anger and disdain. just keep going like her ancestors from that border in Eastern Europe changing with the tides

Ukraine, Poland, just keep going, praying to God

and she has the constitution to pull it off

but my father and I do not

those soft fleshy orbs where sperm are made

the flowers named after them

lip-like appendage with a pouch-like base

that resembles a swollen testicle… orchids

everyone has disabilities, no one has capacity in all areas

sometimes they are surprising, and there is shame

I practice remedial eating, breathing and eliminating

I have come to go beyond

my older daughter bought her wedding dress today

the younger one already married

it has a fitted bodice and full skirt

she wants pearls on her veil since the dress is simple

pearls on her shoes, veils that cast mystery, veils that hide

her veil will not cover her face

the sickness of confusion in my soul, the obstacles

I give to Grandfather’s Breath of Faith

the veils, the limitations, the thinking I had to deny my self

to hang onto the bliss and the pleasure

my father is depressed in their small retirement apartment

he watches TV or the big trucks on the interstate outside of his window

driving in one direction, driving in the other direction

he says this is no way to spend the last years of your life

he wants to get in his big silver pick up truck

and just get on that highway and drive up north

where there’s lots of space

and there are big statues of American heroes

that were blasted into the side of the mountain

there is nothing to do but love him