The Holy Ghost

 
 
There we always were, in always again, enjambed helter skelter on a Sealy
Posturepedic neither could leave. Outside cranes pounded the earth, & dead

Leaves clung to skeletal trees, the air fragrant & crackling.
Money accrued in heaps. Crib deaths mounted. Technology & prayer

Flourished. Little of that mattered where we nestled in the season
Of cuddle & craving, & grew thin, past sadness & anger, sliding in

And out of stillness that was our succor. And hints of the everyday rose brighter
And hotter outside our open portal. We marveled the many lights

Blink off & on, on & off, the stretch of fire furrowed in the night
Sky. Then our hair fell out, from leg, ear & head—pubic fuzz, downy arm,

Stubbled beard—& of the strands long & scratchy we made a nest
For the doves camped outside our windowsill. Next were our teeth,

Then our bodies branching into flame, soon to join the blue black
Archipelago of stars, quantum phantoms in the undivided dark.
 

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Ronald Okuaki Lieber

RONALD OKUAKI LIEBER, LP, MFA, was once a Peace Corps volunteer. He now is a licensed psychoanalyst in private practice in NYC and a professor at SUNY Nassau. Poems have recently been published or are forthcoming in Bang!, Sky Island Journal, and Blue Mountain Review, in previous years The Nation, The New England Review, Passages North, The Alaska Quarterly Review and other literary journals.

Latest posts by Ronald Okuaki Lieber (see all)

• The Holy Ghost - July 21, 2020