Disgraceland
Before my first communion, I clung to doubt
as Satan spider-like stalked
the orb of dark surrounding Eden
for a wormhole into paradise.
God had formed me from gel in my mother’s womb,
injected by my dad’s smart shoot.
They swapped sighs until
I came, smaller than a bite of burger.
Quietly, I grew till my lungs were done
then the Lord sailed a soul
like a lit arrow to inhabit me.
Maybe that piercing
made me howl at birth,
or the masked creatures whose scalpel
cut a lightning bolt to free me.
I was hoisted by the heels and swatted, fed
and hauled around. Time-lapse photos show
my fingers grow past crayon outlines,
my feet come to fill spike heels.
Eventually, I lurched out
to kiss the wrong mouths, get stewed,
and sulk around. Christ always stood
to one side with a glass of water.
I swatted the sap away.
When my thirst got great enough to ask,
a clear stream welled up inside,
some jade wave buoyed me forward,
and I found myself upright
in the instant, with a garden
inside my own ribs aflourish.
There, the arbor leafs.
The vines push out plump grapes.
You are loved, someone said. Take that
and eat it.
Mary Karr, Poetry
This Love Is Silent 