Sunday, May 3, 2009

Skinning a Cat

I sit in church in my pew in the balcony, and watch as the sunlight bounces like a ball off the passing cars at 299 792 458 meters per second, shoots through the winter trees, through the church window and shines their leafless silhouette across the wall like a black and white filmstrip of naked branches, arms raised, flick, flick, flick, a refrain. A liturgy of trees.

The Glory,
and I am undone.
Breaking. Peeled back.
Lips parted, throat tight, eyes full, mouth empty.

God appears, is merciful, covers his face and only pastes pictures on the wall, and still I do not know if I will survive the show - me and my threadbare skin sack of bones and organs and blood.

I fear violence, disease, my face through a windshield at eighty an hour, a knife in some dark helplessness,
while my body, just stitched to my soul, so loosely looped, fumbles most at the threads
on any given morning in sunlight.

7 comments:

Kimberly said...

Loving this, lady!

Cherie said...

aahhhh....you GOOD!

Janna Barber said...

methinks me must work a bit harder at me poems, so they may have proper mystery. like yore'ns.

deanna said...

Another real and good one; I've been digesting it. Your picture on the Relief site is cute. :o)

Angela said...

thanks, girls.

ha! deanna, i keep forgetting about that piece. all i know is that i can't afford more than my free copy of it!
i'll put up a link later.

Terog said...

"I fear violence, disease, my face through a windshield at eighty an hour, a knife in some dark helplessness"

I think we all do, at least I know I do. A surprising (perhaps troubling) amount of my daydreams end in disaster. I want to keep that sentence written down somewhere. Very nicely put.

Also, thank you for the kind comment a few days back. :-)

deanna said...

I know. One free copy is something, but where are the ones for my mom and cousins and aunts and uncles? I may have birthday money left to buy your issue, though.