For sinners, for poets

I have been to many churches—
at the church where my parents met,
the Sunday school teacher
held my left hand
behind my back
and forced me to cut
with right-handed scissors
 

we worshipped in a closed theater
with red carpet and plastic seats
leading down
to a small stage
where the pastor stood
before a movie screen
 

we met in a closed diner—
a checkerboard floor below
my feet dangling
from a red booth, and Bibles wide
out on the counter
 

in a church by a lake
where we fed geese,
a young girl, we later learned
had been molested,
removed her pantyhose
and asked my sister
to take hers off too—
 

when my parents couldn’t
pay their bills,
we found refuge in church basements—
the Baptists served spaghetti on the second Tuesday
and the Orthodox fed us the first Wednesday—
a picky eater, I reluctantly cleaned my plate
 

as a teenager, I sat crooked in pews
of several churches—
some with stained glass
that hid sunny days
behind apostles and one
lined with flags
of countries where
they had sent white missionaries
to save brown people from damnation—
 

ashamed for liking a girl
the way other girls liked boys—
I was sure that no god
could love me
when I hated myself—
 

I have been to many churches
but none like this—
below a white canopy
erected like a tent at a festival,
a man told me
he suffers from depression,
left numb to joys or woes,
except for in the company
of others, and
when I read that I had
never loved myself
until I loved my partner,
it reminded him
that he could feel
 

our congregation held hands—
thought of tendons popping
and our knuckles, pulleys
in the mechanism of the body,
thought of how those hands
worked, collecting calluses,
and made love, caressing
the bodies of our respective gods
 

we smelled leaf mold—
the forest floor, the smell of life—
and we did not walk, but strolled
beyond the remnants of bridges
burned to ash, given back
to the arms of the earth
 

we spoke to our ghosts
and refused consolation—
our sins forgiven by the sunshine
that bent around the canopy
and left sweat on our upper lips—
 

when we rose
to read a poem, to make
a testimonial—
 

we were free