Unity Candle


I was not built like an arc
for eternal vows,
our metaphorical candles
lighting in confederation
on an altar.

I kneel to it once a day,
five times a day, to the east,
west, what does it matter?

I will carry you like a load,
sagging throughout my life.
I will smirk at you in bars
because I am glad I shared
my being with you,
glad we combined
our symbolic souls
for a period of time.

Hitler has left the ceiling
above our bed now.
I have leaned too far
upon that telephone wire.
It tilts like the big dipper
in the sky,
scooping the stars
like so much integrity
in one spoonful.

You were clinging
to the wire, clinging
to Corinthians and Psalms
in hopes of climbing
back on top of the wire,
a tight rope walk
in a search for equilibrium.

But you fell. You plunged.
I tapped you slightly,
and you fell with Hitler
and all, and now I
am perched just above
Pallas Athena on that
wire like a blue
bird beaten black,
singing of sin.

We are the primary color
wheel separated like pulling
one blue child away
from a yellow one,
peeling and scraping
their hands from one
another while they watch
each other fade
into the green
of the secondary wheel.

But all of the colors
have mixed now. No light
can be let in, and I am
emerged in sin like inches
on a height chart,
like the waters of God
rising in the Great Awakening.

I turn my head to the side,
blackbird praying
to the east of me.