There are two empty bowls that
sit permanently on either side of my freckled nose
half-way between my thin pink lips and curly hairline
And each morning
while the sun has just begun to filter through my window
God finds His way into my bedroom and
Taking the world, like a blood orange
between His two calloused hands He rings every beautiful and terrible drop into my
two empty bowls
Its juice consists of, in liquid form, a mixture of:
the smell of my mother’s perfume as she pulls me into herself and
the homeless man who reeks of piss and
rape and
lilac bushes and
poetry and
children whose parents do not love them and
the sound of my father tuning his guitar and
Elizabeth’s laughter and
rage and
well-tended gardens and
alcoholism and
cancer and
weddings and
suicide and
quiet piano music
He squeezes it all, one drop at a time into my
two empty bowls
until they, being so full of the world, flood down my cheeks
Now and again
a stray drop will trickle
down my upper lip, into my mouth ajar
And I have found that, more often than not
when the taste of the beautiful and the taste of the terrible begin to reel on my tongue
I am unable to distinguish the difference