i. To Fashion
                                                            a Remedy

                    I knocked on the top and hit it from the back,
but when I lifted its lid and opened the box,
          I found the reliquary to be empty—save for a single thought:

                    that perhaps sanctity is not a substance,
          but something in our Selves,
                    that for which we are always searching,

                              never knowing it is we who have been sought.

                                                                      *

                                                  ii. For the Infamy
                                                            of Attempted Beauty

                    Those little four-letter words
                              melt like dead metaphors
                                        in your filthy mouth—

Those fading sparks of invading stars
          our farthest constellations
                    bury in folds of dark as we take off our myths

                              and expose heaven’s infinite oblivions emptying us—

                    Those hasty ellipses hiding between their dots what heart
                              you crack as you mask your thoughts
                                        in fatal passages my lack of reaction tears apart—

This kiss I rescind as I rip up prayers
          condescending to shouts I spit out when you appear
                    where we left off, and figure out what makes

                              loving each other so hard—

                    Neither speaks, but we hear
                              annihilation’s arthritic grip approach the situation
                                        with a crawl so quick, neither sees truth when it creeps—

                                                  That untranslatable place
                                                            to which relics return
                                                                      after memory exterminates speech.