God, you are vaporous inside my mind
again. You are there in the corner, there in the dust, your voice
an echo, your language an infinite equation. I’ve a chemical
burn on my nape. The shape of a cross.
Where you hide, tired of speaking, tired of my inability
to understand. God, I watch you turn water into blood
as I bathe. Or I have so much sodium in my blood
my veins burst in running water. I know my mind
plays tricks on me sometimes. I’m unable
to let go: I’ve loved the same man 20 years, his voice
guttural, on the phone, traveling across
state lines. I know he loved me for a month before his chemical
reaction for affection dissipated. God, are you a chemist?
Am I evaporating in your watch glass? My blood
like water. My blood the sea. My sea red all the way across.
Like you, turning red the still waters before my five-year-old mind
could comprehend. The burning tree. & your voice
crackling from the fire. I was unable
to differentiate Heston from Moses. From you, God. Unable
to tell magic from miracle. From special effect. Or chemical
reaction. When my man left, took with him his breathe & his voice,
I saw my blood
soaking the bedspread, my mind
still conscious in that spillage, penetrating the cross-
stitching of the mattress. God, it’s crossed
my mind before, how my body isn’t able
to remain my own in the face of absence. I don’t mind
it anymore. I don’t want that chemical
safety net, nor the miracle of your hands holding my blood
inside this body. & never again the echo of your voice.
I want to speak my own language. To listen to my voice.
To take the cross
down from my everyday walkway & wipe the blood
from my eyes. I want to see myself, able
& full, in this mirror of black ink. To break the chemical
scale unbalancing the waters in my brain.
