i.
will god let me be a conduit going
anywhere i can have you,
into elysian fields where i do
begin an eager pilgrimage to where
your thighs have already started kissing,
where i do place my ear
to your stomach as a shell to the sea
and know the deepest part of you
to be a force of fullness that i do not
cower from even as
i am brought to my knees.

ii.
your hips fit to me as a church
does to the ears of god.
i turn wet-mouthed and wanting to
scrolls of flowers and sinew and sweat
and underneath years of comparison,
you.

iii.
you wrap so tightly around myself
it is as if we are both the glove,
both the bishop and his hands raised
in zeal–the blessing of
incisor to shuddering collarbone so much
like a sacrament to a
teenage self, the way the colors shifted
under your shirt as liturgy for days
afterwards, and yet always remembered as
good work, glorious to behold.