My Ancestor Who Learned To Read By Staring At The Bible

 

O LORD, listen! Look,

hear, how each aching alphabet

lashes my throat.

 

My O is fear & a trembling

kiss      I grip

 

your spine

and am fed by your flesh

every L I take:

 

my tongue to Your backside.

Again, another O

                       

as I lay my lips on you, again.

Like hands

my jaw jacks the R,

this D thrusts

 

the roof of my mouth           

when You’re in me, makes

 

off with my breath

on the way out

every night

 

I sacrifice

this soft palate, fold

 

trachea in prayer:

LORD, let my words articulate

what the body wouldn’t dare

 

pronounce

may the young purr of my voice

 

roar into maturation

after you have come all over me

give me strength to sermon

 

what I can’t swallow,

O LORD. Turn

 

my clapped cheeks

the other way

make me holler

 

Hallelujah!

Amen.

 

Because what is climax

if not a resolution?

Your every Word

 

make my body chorus. I can’t

be sung back into submission.