Title is taken from someone creatively named 'anonymous', and the quotations are adapted from the Book of Common Prayer, 1929. 



_



there’s a church up on the hill 

and it’s burning, burning like the end of days. 



To you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.



vivisect a priest and have a look—

is there anything different about his insides? 

I thought maybe a brighter heart, a cleaner lung

& a brain free of impurities. maybe there’s

a hole in his hand & a gash in his side. but

what I saw in our makeshift autopsy struck me 

as neither sacred nor profane. 



This is my blood, which is shed for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins.



strike match & hold. if it were any easier

it’d be genuflection, and if it were any harder

it’d be martyrdom. There’s a saint on your wall,

watching over breakfast. clasp hands over waffles. 

you can say grace, but his ears are shut; 

some masquerade for kindness no one will know

but the sweatshop girl who carved his face from plastic. 



This is my body, which is is given for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins.



I was watching a show about a dead man. they 

split his skin from ear to ear, and put his brain

on a scale. how much is it worth?—if they knew

what was happening in our heads they would know

life was a tacky burlesque, glitzy and oversexed,

designed to keep the shy from singing. & when the saint

above your cereal will dance with Aunt Jemima, maybe

then the ridiculous will come to light. 



Let us pray. 



this is a book of irrefutable truths, written 

by a liar and edited by a pope. when the world ends,

maybe you will clutch it to your breast. or maybe

you will toss it aside for the dogs to pick at. 



maybe 

between its pages

you’ll find where I slipped my soul.