The Year I Almost Became A Catholic by Warren Falcon

"we are returned to the fragility of birds" - Raul Voz 

The year I almost became a Catholic
5 stars rose from your breasts in Spring.

My nest was a sudden disturbance in blue.

A veil, a floating head, bleeding thorns
adorned your white throat.

I was compelled away from my boat from
fishing long nights only to arrive ashore with
torn nets and apparitions upon my knees.

Without will my cursing ceased.

I discovered I was speechless.

I learned to speak with my hands.
Curious circular clouds surrounded
particular heads without logic and
genuflections strange rearranged
the air in front of my chest while I
sat upon or hid the left hand.

Purple became everything dear.

Roses diminished before your bare
pink feet treading upon a serpent
entwining each ankle like a tourniquet.
Virgin stars minus 5 surrounded
your curved shape defiant of robes
meant to convey the holy restraining
in my groin.

Odd collections mounted in the attic where I had 
retired to cloister up and wait.

Leaden pilgrimage up and down pointless 
stairs accumulated distance. 

My beard became a convention of lepers and bells, 
fingernail parings, clumps of hair, bits of flesh, 
sacks of ears, all relics in the making. 

I became an accountant numbering and listing each holy scrap.

I tried not to be critical but my eyes lied.

I could not confess except by pencil, 
leaving notes and grease stains
for the priest to interpret.

Absolution my hope, 
a mute vow was my prosthesis.

Then Spring returned.

My boat sank. All mended nets, 
a year's work, were lost. 

Nothing to do.

I return to you, 

a parenthesis 

in the sea of loneliness.

Each star, each breast, you have removed
in my absence, mourning made permanent, 
scars upon your throat oddly fish-shaped.

Astonished, my voice returns, curses, then caresses, 
withered left hand free to unravel regret nerve for
nerve, the only net worth mending.

I reserve this one strange act from a year of orthodoxy, 

to anoint your feet with tears.

I dry them with my hair, your outstretched arms
a beseeching beyond emptiness, your chest barren
but for my hands remembering the uses of prayer, 
kisses but murmurs, rumored stars where swollen sails had been.

[photo by Warren Falcon - all rights reserved]