dingir

sun

he had gravity. he was so riotous, captivating. there was real levity there, enviable lightness. in voice notes he recites grocery lists: ripe cucumber, leeks, bone broth, tofu. in the kitchen there's glitter on my thighs. they'll never love you like i love you, he tells me.

daniel

he’s viriscene, he’s close to me, ill lit. city to city, nanking, first kiss to the other night. i'm colored in his colors, in the oils, the reliefs, the look of him leaning on his vellum freudian couch, cigarettes in trays. the thought of his name is like the opening verses of genesis, a twilight tapestry. he's got ironic tattoos on his arms. he's cruel for dying. i'm lowly for his lotus feet.

deuteronomy 34

reading over notes for my lectures, daniel feigns that he knows nevuchadnezzar. in the convent, his room looks out over the veranda; light hits it late in the morning, lingers in the evenings. i rise, lift myself, feet on mango wood floor. he’ll rest for hours. i like him waking me up in my mornings. i like that he’s ventive, like God. returning to him, now, i line my finger along the tattoo on his spine. he recites things he’s learned from creeping in the last rows of my classes. "so, about the deuteronomist," his voice is low. in a few days, he’ll rise, ticklish, looking for me. it's law, written in stone. this, moses, he knows him well, though.

pyre

i am thinking, here, of God writing in a language no one yet knows (dan 5), or performing creation so good He writes it twice, differently each time (j-source, p-source genesis), or Him starting a rumor that somehow the person who wrote down the events of moses' death was moses himself (deut 34). i am thinking, here, of the orifices that don't want to be legible, the hole in daniel's suicide note where there is my name, then nothing else.

danny

the gap in his front teeth is like the yam šup, sea of reeds, which refers ontically to something closer to a marsh. that man that licks locusts and honey is ash, now, in the reservoir. the waters there recede and move forth naturally.

lyceum

his eyes less river, they’re nightish. there’s no verse left. there’s only his eyes, reflecting christmas lights, reflecting the glow of lighters, reflecting the glow of me. he’s centimeters from me, he’s a first kiss from me. he’s coughing, i think, they’ll resuscitate him. i love the naivety. last i met God, He was doing fine arts at this catholic college.

ransom

on grey, he and i lean together in the kitchen. his fingers on my lowest vertebrae, his feet on tile, my feet on his, in tune to the lyric of roberta flack. "i felt the earth move in my hands like the trembling heart of a captive bird." in the tiniest kitchen on the tiniest coast, our first and last kitchen, my cheek rests on his chest. he and i are no younger than the constellations. the rhetoric likens itself to ransoming.

i will repay you

he told me that he first felt love at nineteen, but the locusts have since eaten it. i feel like i live in half now. faith gives me lament, rite. he gives me irises, lilies, those things i like.

coniferous

i’ve known centuries of him. i’m in genesis for love, riotous. cedars of lebanon, thud, thud, thud. the nasturtiums turn the color of thoughts, nonopaque, my feelings for him unruly things. i’ve loved him for centuries, i think. i tell him this. "i’m comatose for you," he replies. this is, too, the keeper of your character.

curiosity

why did God chose to make us as soft as flesh when He Himself is a strong as rock, as fast as the wind, and as beautiful as the sea? He became flesh too, you know. He’s reciprocal like that.