Offering

To mend the unspoken, we will need
a lot of water. Runnels, crystals, the tears
of fruits and vegetables. We will need
to make our way across the cathedral
marquetry in the shape of snow, to hear
a stray confession spill into the hands
of the confessor, and the gold above us
turns into a lake, alive with the last
embers of day. An alchemist told me,
when grief turns to water, it washes the wound.
Then, it takes on the irons of earth.
And maybe, in time, a new song, where
an oboe stitches an ivy to the pillars.
A harp lifts a bowl of water to the sky.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 41 Number 4, on page 31
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https://newcriterion.com/issues/2022/12/offering