Quam singulari

Validation seeps in the time
between sex and sobriety
as you commit murder in the bedroom.

You've shattered your idol
but you keep the pieces
tethered around your neck,
feminine, more than ornamental.

Even more laughable
is your American pragmatism
when you take your pills
to help you sleep
to help you face
your illegal truths,

But insomnia is as good an inspiration
as love or pain or chewing nails
or pinned shoulders.

Protestant words
silence Catholic frescos
as jaundice fades through childhood
to paint by a higher number,
preferring to play along the edges
but remaining unenclosed ourselves.

Blasphemous stick figures
idle in anxious gallows,
hanging in endless debate
between good or lesser good
in kidnapping
and touching neighborly conduct,
crane their broken necks to watch
as the curtain is pulled
across the water-filled doorframe like
ducks on a string.

Good morning, angels,
did you learn to sleep last night?
Trace the patterns
In the birdbath frost,
more fundamental than physics
or little girls.