Sacristy

Sacristy

We cut our long sleeves and laid in tall grass
the summer I discovered the abandoned small chapel.
Smoking dope with no pocket money-
we were just long aimless walks down deserted roads.

You taught me to love the forbidden
and immediately the anesthesia of it took to me.
I held it up like a processional cross
boldly for the world to see.

Our time together stretched out like bubble gum.
Neither of us were sure we were good people,
but we were certain we were thirsty
for holiness we sought in one way tickets and Walt Whitman.

I kept you like a town that’s lost it’s shipyard.
We needed each other to make secrets.
We needed each other to haunt one another
for a few good years.

We needed each other like artists need drawing paper and notebooks,
our secret sketched quite clearly.
Everything awaited us,
but first we needed a mass,
a holy place

To transform one another
from wine and bread
to body and blood.

Real human flesh
that would carry us
from the bodies of our youth-
to woman and man.