My god!

(after reading Bonhoeffer's Letters & Papers)

I haven't yet felt--have you?-- the round-faced cherub in me nor in anyone who's left

    louder eddies of his music, no, not for the longest time

or seen the bespectacled stout and owlish devils, who besiege with sleeves tucked inside

   his palms & the coppery lips ranting on & on about real love,

(and not even the defender of cats in Aleppo, blessed be the brown palm! or even a Juan

   strapped to the bone could've calmed better my stormy heart)--

no, I haven't so much as imagined anyone in watered silk, e.g., who comes close to this spotty saint crumpled in a corner, lover of misshapen nights & letters

(2021)