9.

Oh, He smote me alright!
Sent me flailing down an icy gyre
(my limbs were skin-tight tessellating), sent
me down, but I know I'm still alive because
of my trivial thoughts:

who won the game at Yankee Stadium
have I finally become complaisant
the rats probably devoured my pizza crust

(I don't know, maybe, fuck them)

If you were spinning down with me (old bath water
down the drain), I would hold your
hand.
Our phalanges would freeze together, intertwined.
A carefully woven Navajo basket from the loom
of the Great Spirit--the Great Spirit who has no
sword, inconspicuous or not.

The Great Spirit who, when asked by the metallurgist
if he wanted to purchase a sword, replied,
"And do what with it? Cut down the vines on my
weathered trellis? No, no, I love those vines..."

I want our phalanges to freeze together.
I want so many things
like a warm draft every now and then.

Even after He
smote
me
and I'm spinning down to join the
brown tulip garden, I think about
how I always wanted to travel to the
Dead Sea of all places.

I'd watch the sun boil the salt and
wait for equilibrium, not worrying about
fish nibbling at my leg hairs. I would
float on my back, and maybe even
pray.