Lightening doublestrike. Unseen,
white-hot. Holy. And later
an upwelling, swelling lifting tide.
Heat, light, a molten sun between us
warm amber, all the gold in the temple.
Your eyes drenched in honey.
My hands palms open.
And a third thing, a presence
we created it or it came because
we were pure. A god, or the sense
we were pouring or being poured through
that we, combined, were the channel
or that something had come to say
now now now, here is the place
no one goes without changing.
And then the world broke open.
So hard to face down what remains.
The god is fled, the ashes heap
against my muddy heart. Our holy third
withdrawn. I’ve never felt that pulse before
or since, that shimmer in the room
and never may again, and grieve it.
The teachers say that
every incantation catches fire
on the third utterance.
Speak it three times like a bell, and
the universe answers.
You were mine mine mine.
Or maybe it doesn’t.
A muteness like the black
between the stars.
