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Confessional

by Frances-Marie Coke

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Once more I tiptoe down the aisle

of chandeliers (their lustre lost a while ago)

encumbered with a decade’s dust

of fireflies’ wings interred in rust.

 

Cobwebs line the angels’ wings

above a loft where no one sings,

and silence lingers, waiting

for your hand to wave it on

and free the war in me.

 

The kneeling pads have thinned,

and I have come to tell you I have sinned

again; that I have lost the way

I walked with you; that daily I betray

your crown of thorns. Flesh presides

and spirit keels.

 

Sawdust rupturing its eyes, an incense-drunken

moth beats wildly at the shrunken

mesh that stretched across my face

once, when I could pray. In this dry place,

the scarab crawls.

 

You ask too much of me. I sip the gall but will not touch

the hem of your untainted garb.

Rising From my wasted knees, I inch without conviction

to my sin, drowning your reflection

in stained glass. At my touch,

The metal hinges crack.

The scorched wings flutter at my back.

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