GETHSEMANE

The prayer begins with a fine. I’m made for two masters:
the forest & its hunters. To carry my light, I must be called
by a slip of grace that is the
injury of my father; a god folding into the
calm of a lamb. The communication that
forms in my chest is not language accepting
fate; it’s a red flame sizzling
my wrists, my legs, my back tender & the divine
selfishness in my side to a nectar yet what I want
is not the milk in the cup. Does that make me selfish? I
don’t know. The prayer is an animal fallen
into a trap.

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WATER SERVICE

(For Wendy)

You say the hunter at the table’s end is perfect, with the
way he thirsts for water, like a wounded animal running
towards the language of the forest.

I want to hold your hands & in this moment, believe
that the forest loves the service of blood I provide. I
mutter tongues, search for an understanding to tell you
the prophecy of the spaces in your eyes— the things to
come in two, six years

but when finally I make a sound, like a bleeding deer, I
ask for water instead.

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Poems © Osy Mizpah Unuevho
Image: Pixabay Public Domain