Kneel.
Taste.
Repent.
Repeat.
That’s the gospel of her body,
the catechism of her sweat,
and I am devout
in ways the righteous never get.
She was my brother’s girl
before she was my ruin,
and every time I touch her
I can hear the bridge still burning.
Bad sacrament, dirty grace,
the salt of her still on my face,
communion taken on my knees
in the church of what should never be.
I told myself I’d stop.
Packed my guilt in a suitcase
and drove three states away,
lasted forty-seven days
before her voice on the phone
pulled me back like a tide
that doesn’t give a damn
about the shore’s opinion.
She opened the door in nothing
but the chain and the dark,
and I fell inside like a man
collapsing into prayer.
We are wrecked and we are wreckage.
We are damage done on purpose.
And the wreckage feels like heaven
when the heaven’s lost its service.