confirmation

nothing has dulled, not even with time.

you walk through the house and are stained

like the window                              your tongue white,

                                                           heavy with the tasteless body.

in the big room                                there was velvet

and you got what you wanted.

what you wanted, this: theresa,

a name to stack with the others.

picked in the sap of summer

as in a, theresa, rubber of the damned.

theresa who said                             the suffering was holy

                                                           in the pocket of your head, unknowing

standing water in the font             could be drunk.

that past the wooden brush of death,

in dark hallways, like perfume, death stiffened robes

hung in closets like many fathers. many men.

past men, theresa, your clear-eyed past.

shame lolled heavy under you like pudding.

your lips on the lips                        of the chalice, wet.

                                                           how could you have known?

the way you could have shattered

the quiet of that room.

that no fish

could have swallowed you                          and itself survived.