Today's poem is by Joshua Garcia

Hymn
       

Margaret doesn't believe in hell,
and Rob isn't sure about euthanasia.
I ask my friends about these things
because I trust whatever they'll give me,
however formed or unformed.
Come on up to the house
or to the yard where we'll build
a tent of meaning. What is it?
This stuff we build ourselves around,
build beyond our understanding: a naked
wood unhumiliated by the wash
of plaster, holes which have not yet bloomed
into the fixtures they were made for,
doorways that do not yet have doors.
Every night, I dream I have found
the perfect apartment,
a place I've already been but forgot,
a place to divide time into,
rooms painted a color that feels
good to open the eyes to. And windows
which sometimes permit too much.
A small apartment with a man and a piano—
I can't enclose my hopes any more
than I can bulldoze my memories.
I used to think a house could be holy.
I thought, I don't want to be penetrated
by anything but his body.
In my dreams, God turns my fixtures inside out.
Once, I fell and a doctor put a staple in my head.
Just one. No need for local anesthesia.
And then, like an afterthought, Well, one more.
When God dropped me, I heard the snap.
Margaret held my hand.
Shea rubbed my back. My phone is ringing.
I am singing. I am singing.

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Copyright © 2024 Joshua Garcia All rights reserved
from Pentimento
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission