From the Fishouse

Tell us again, father, about the priest who couldn’t fit his fingers in your mouth so you
had to suck on the Eucharist as soon as it touched your lower lip. His hand radiated
warmth like a canine’s breath and suddenly the sound of a shirt coming off, and suddenly
the door bandaging light, the darkness flat across your body and nowhere the merciful
word for Christ. The nipples were aflame, but whose? Bleat in the throat, Biblical goat
that sniffs the sticky fluid of its spilled death and what a betrayal it is to move through the
world with a pair of eyes only to have it end with the nose. Tell us, father, how it aches to
have a fat thumb brand its signature on the flesh—wound that makes you tear into the
pillows of adulthood. Spare us the nights of grief, dear father, and warn us against the
fierce desire of men before we drop into that ecstasy again of having a bastard drill the
twin fires to our chests.