Two Truths and a Lie

Look, I never swore to be as modest
as a Victorian ankle, and sure, God blushed
at a few of my prayers. I flush the hallelujahs
from my skin before bed and let heaven gnaw
at my window’s light. My diary is a private
weather of regrets, but I refuse the shame
of the moon. You can’t make me robe myself
in winter, its whiteness aggressive as a lab coat.
The dream said I was a poppy fondled by wind.
The sermon said the body was sacred even
before I knelt in front of the saint’s bones.
I pray with the same sacred filth as any mouth.
The poem said the imperfect is so hot in us,
and I replied yes—I’m devout and flammable
and as clueless about indigo as The Iliad with
its wine-dark seas. I can parrot a parable,
can memorize all the moral fables, but I’m still
susceptible to the spells of night. I’ve been known
to dance as red as the letter A, to kiss the scissors
that cut Samson’s hair. My desire is half Puritan,
wincing at vulgar sunsets. It wants a classic dark,
a faith black as the back of a mirror, a love
so fierce it ripens gravity into stars.