We are all chosen

or unchosen
the sky has many doors.
We are given the candle,
the bread, the everything
till the world’s so-called end
a begged-for-ending rather
that just cannot come
and just cannot be granted so easily
whilst a child prays among
mini-deaths, hopes heavily
and goes numb.

But this whirling rock
this creepy cradle has already
turned some white humans into
darkened absent bodies,
then they felt superior
dead-poisonous and shadowed.
Baby corpses hover like angels
in our dreams, they die
they are kept dying
then they wake up everywhere
because it’s morning again,
already, a brand new morning.
Oblivious of the coming benediction
oblivious of wantless confusions
a day so muddled.

It’s 7 o’clock. The dead
await the light so patiently
among burning tents.

Not ascension, no, but a swelling
of some sky, and pulsing
of a soul’s fluid in a haunted
poem like this
for the child knows
everything and the child prays
among mini-deaths retrieving
a scattered breath
‘Hide me God, cover me
with everything you got till
this ends’

But all it takes
is a heart’s gentle lid
of a child playing
at an ancient beach
to close upon a nightmare
to wake up the washed bodies
to make a brand new home
apologetically luminous.
A humming of her unfinished business
blesses her and pulls her in
for returning.