49

For Any Leper Named Christopher

There comes an amplitude in pain

beyond which is no increase in register.

In that hour we lie down to crazed silence

or else (oh yes it happens!) rise

to purest music or children’s laughter

outside of time, up unmapped range of being,

the mind diverging from the still-feeling flesh

in a will-less fiat of itself:

unhindered; shining; free.

And if then, for lack of earthly referent,

images repeat themselves,

their faces all turn luminous

with an other knowing.

Thus would I tell you your loveliness

that the temporal eye cannot see

nor my spilled voice cry

nor my hand touch when I reach for yours.

Your flesh does not wear you knowingly

nor bear your bright burden into meaning.

And it would not serve even if I knelt, and oiled

the black dust from your unwilling feet

who (hiding them from shame) could never

endure your stigmata be revealed.

But you too the angels sang to birth

and in your name now darken the equinoctial sun.