Posture at Daybreak

If I lie a certain way,

I might be the Christ—

arms out flat across the bed,

my knees bent and twisted,

my feet nailed to a pit

in the mattress, my torso

half-draped in a grimy sheet,

sumptuous as poverty. I am

the Christ. My moonlight skin,

these mission figs for eyes,

make the sands to move

over the dunes, into the next

valley, into the next life.

I wear blood and bone

as if I have returned.

I say take and eat of me.

If I should want, I might

not save you. From my

fingertips spin halos

like hurricanes and enough

longing to stop the clocks.

And you would believe me,

were it not for the pitchfork

beauty of my loneliness,

shot through with the good

ache of my secret annihilator,

were it not for my body,

sweating electromagnetic

charge. My lips will

only permit your lips

to know them in prayer.

They shape the word

calamity and half-dream

a house of senseless miracles.

If you need more proof,

I will put your doubt

where the spear made

a river in my side.

For I am the Christ

and I shall persist, levitating

in this arc of light—

though I am mocked and

ridiculed by what I desire.