Tonight's Poet Corner: Trinity
Trinity
by Belinda Roddie
In the eyes of the Father, she seems lost, confused,
wavering in the middle of this holy tomb of a room,
a paper thin wafer glued to her tongue, waiting to be
consumed, like a body eager for some scrap of warmth.
She tries to pray in the pews. Angels and saints
don't stick around this place daily, though their
stained glass gaze lingers like the callused fingers
of sandpaper sunlight. Not like the marble, or the
carved wooden seats, or the carpeting as red and
pulsing as Christ's last handful of heartbeats.
In the eyes of the Son, her prayers create steam
out of rain, and the ark of her ancestors is dry
on the bank of a river that she's never rowed.
He knows that her mental rosaries are just for
show - the beads evaporate in her hands. They make
dents when they finally land, divots in front of the
altar. The priest, in the next room, remembers not to
recite the same homily from the week before. He has
already heard her confession during one of his private
sessions behind a single closed door. She is weak.
But the flesh always is. In the eyes of the Holy Spirit,
she's not praying at all. She has questions, sorting
them in piles in her head. She wants to know why
it's so hard to tuck away the urges, to mute their shine;
instead, they gleam brighter than the constellations
leaving pagan thumbprints on the sky. She doesn't
receive answers, not clear ones, not in tiny cramped
text all packed up like good little disciples in that
fraying missalette. If she holds scripture against her
chest long enough, it will strip the sin away from her
skin, help her be reborn as stronger stuff. Resurrection
doesn't just have to be a Jesus thing. It's what she
needs, more than anything else. She breathes the air
that I breathe, and when she sees me, she can't stop
the cacophony that's deep, deep within the cavities of
her soul. She stirs all her words into a mixing bowl
so she can't string sentences together and tell me
the things that she doesn't want me to know. That
she doesn't want me to hear. And she douses
her face in incense and perfume so they can't smell it
on her, either: The excitement of her body meeting with
mine. The parishioners can stare from their hymn books,
but they won't see us making the sign of the cross
on each other's tongues, drinking in something stronger
than the Eucharist, something that sustains us for longer
than last Sunday's service could ever maintain. I'm not
ashamed of it. Of us. Who taught you to bury rainbows
in your hair? The Bible gives you one to carry - a
covenant, a promise that you won't be washed away in
another flood. I knelt in those same pews for over
twenty years, and the fears devoured verses like candy,
but before it got worse, I learned to leave. I was tired
of the mythos of purity that I was forced to weave.
It took me falling in love for the anxiety to subside.
She gave me the truth that the church could never
provide. Don't be afraid, and don't you dare hide. Love
shouldn't make martyrs out of lambs. Lions let their
manes tangle without worrying about judgment from on
high. I, I do not seek redemption from a drive-thru
window. I won't touch His stigmata if it means my
own wounds wind up infected. My orientation doesn't
change no matter how much I've genuflected. They'll
never get a prism perspective. I am not desperate
for angels to save me. Keep your halos to yourself
and your messengers' self-help muffled in their trumpets
before they blare false epiphanies. I will not be
humbled if it means the lies become exalted. I see
her. She can't pray because she doesn't have anything
to say. Not to Him. But to me, she communicates
without psalms. Her palms stay warm against mine.
Saints' lips manage kisses well. It brings us calm,
keeps the panic attacks about Hell far in the back
of our minds. We ignore the creeds recited because
we don't want to be purged of our deeds. And I'm
sure that in the eyes of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit, I might be a devil. But the Devil
keeps his horns pointed downward into shadows, while
I hold my head up and inhale the vapor of her lost
language before it descends again as flame. Speak
my name instead. Discard testament if it gives you
fire and brimstone sentiment rather than comfort,
for our embrace is a saving grace and worth
the consternation of a strangled AMEN.
by Belinda Roddie
In the eyes of the Father, she seems lost, confused,
wavering in the middle of this holy tomb of a room,
a paper thin wafer glued to her tongue, waiting to be
consumed, like a body eager for some scrap of warmth.
She tries to pray in the pews. Angels and saints
don't stick around this place daily, though their
stained glass gaze lingers like the callused fingers
of sandpaper sunlight. Not like the marble, or the
carved wooden seats, or the carpeting as red and
pulsing as Christ's last handful of heartbeats.
In the eyes of the Son, her prayers create steam
out of rain, and the ark of her ancestors is dry
on the bank of a river that she's never rowed.
He knows that her mental rosaries are just for
show - the beads evaporate in her hands. They make
dents when they finally land, divots in front of the
altar. The priest, in the next room, remembers not to
recite the same homily from the week before. He has
already heard her confession during one of his private
sessions behind a single closed door. She is weak.
But the flesh always is. In the eyes of the Holy Spirit,
she's not praying at all. She has questions, sorting
them in piles in her head. She wants to know why
it's so hard to tuck away the urges, to mute their shine;
instead, they gleam brighter than the constellations
leaving pagan thumbprints on the sky. She doesn't
receive answers, not clear ones, not in tiny cramped
text all packed up like good little disciples in that
fraying missalette. If she holds scripture against her
chest long enough, it will strip the sin away from her
skin, help her be reborn as stronger stuff. Resurrection
doesn't just have to be a Jesus thing. It's what she
needs, more than anything else. She breathes the air
that I breathe, and when she sees me, she can't stop
the cacophony that's deep, deep within the cavities of
her soul. She stirs all her words into a mixing bowl
so she can't string sentences together and tell me
the things that she doesn't want me to know. That
she doesn't want me to hear. And she douses
her face in incense and perfume so they can't smell it
on her, either: The excitement of her body meeting with
mine. The parishioners can stare from their hymn books,
but they won't see us making the sign of the cross
on each other's tongues, drinking in something stronger
than the Eucharist, something that sustains us for longer
than last Sunday's service could ever maintain. I'm not
ashamed of it. Of us. Who taught you to bury rainbows
in your hair? The Bible gives you one to carry - a
covenant, a promise that you won't be washed away in
another flood. I knelt in those same pews for over
twenty years, and the fears devoured verses like candy,
but before it got worse, I learned to leave. I was tired
of the mythos of purity that I was forced to weave.
It took me falling in love for the anxiety to subside.
She gave me the truth that the church could never
provide. Don't be afraid, and don't you dare hide. Love
shouldn't make martyrs out of lambs. Lions let their
manes tangle without worrying about judgment from on
high. I, I do not seek redemption from a drive-thru
window. I won't touch His stigmata if it means my
own wounds wind up infected. My orientation doesn't
change no matter how much I've genuflected. They'll
never get a prism perspective. I am not desperate
for angels to save me. Keep your halos to yourself
and your messengers' self-help muffled in their trumpets
before they blare false epiphanies. I will not be
humbled if it means the lies become exalted. I see
her. She can't pray because she doesn't have anything
to say. Not to Him. But to me, she communicates
without psalms. Her palms stay warm against mine.
Saints' lips manage kisses well. It brings us calm,
keeps the panic attacks about Hell far in the back
of our minds. We ignore the creeds recited because
we don't want to be purged of our deeds. And I'm
sure that in the eyes of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit, I might be a devil. But the Devil
keeps his horns pointed downward into shadows, while
I hold my head up and inhale the vapor of her lost
language before it descends again as flame. Speak
my name instead. Discard testament if it gives you
fire and brimstone sentiment rather than comfort,
for our embrace is a saving grace and worth
the consternation of a strangled AMEN.
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