If blood sings from the ground, its song floods 

the bones of prodigals. Paradise is for homebodies. 

The rest of us bear the mark of our wandering. 

In the amethyst hour I tape down my breasts. 

On stage in my doublet, my love asleep. Banish 

second chances, let me stay in the hour of radiant 

dust and a prince’s doom, dancing to the soundtrack 

of God spinning zeros on the record table, a scratched 

black night of bloodied milk and an art that prepares 

itself for accidents. The ticks in the trees drop 

at the smell of children. Jesus swings from the bells. 

My bible the color of a scab and all my lines in red. 

The merciless lullaby sings sin-bitten, hungering 

like the heaven it doesn’t resemble, 

like the hell it does. 

 

                                               Like hell it doesn’t 

marry the hungry to the sinners. The lullaby’s mercy 

ends like Jesus – faster than a thief, but still forever. 

All his scabs redden like parables, and the small fears 

swell like a tick in a child’s ear. Art, like blood in 

the milk. Record, like black in the silk. God dances 

to a soundtrack of scratched zeroes. Prince by birth, 

a king by death. On stage, I double. I banish sleep, 

embrace my second chance. Mark my wandering. 

How I bear it. A body is a home is a prodigal’s 

paradise. In the trysting hour I tape down my breasts, 

call blood to answer the flood singing in the field. 

from The Eloquent Poem

Ed. Elise Paschen. 2019.