[David’s] friendship with Jonathan also rises above the level of the utilitarian friendship of the Old Testament and anticipates the tragic friendship of the New.
          —Florensky¹

Bawdy aching, ancient sacred sacrilege of
brother-making, upend feigned tradition with haughtiest
suggestion of naughty jest and unbed
inhibition to bend to our whims
this prohibition the purity of our
conviction’s intent permits, befriend without end
the one through whom you return
to your beginning, again welcome him,
let in your twin, Didymus-lipped silent
partner wanting to get down to
business with his certain friend, saint
instead of stoning this person whose
moment ornaments your own with pride
only those history has known as
lost murder prepares a home, before
throwing out what we all know
goes on whether or not given
a name or a place in
pages of chronicles, consider how being
forgotten became canonical since first two
parts of one heart felt the
scar of your scourge, your ownership
of so much hopelessness regrets before
you can even receive him and
begin to accept his gift, your
ignorance of a third kind, therefore
more triune than the Trinity of
blind eyes you turn to and
invoke in your raging hate against
what myth mistakes love so innocent
to be, this form of ours
which only gods can see conceives
of no guile yet whiles away
without honour until the day you
work in your circle what logic
will cancel your rhetoric and cause
you to accept how fluid the
movement, how subtle the footstep, of
this magic two men who inhabit
a singular flesh enact, how perfect
their kiss, how defiant, how residual
its drip, a running of sweat
as a whine does from lips
to lips your pronouncement against such
a love as this manages only
to nourish, following the path of
its own freed will, how marriage
complements us when, instead of opposites,
attraction draws together as anything so
magnetic does, those whose likeness mirrors
liken to portraits of us, tortured
souls impervious to your torpor, since
Crowley-esque experiments with a shield of
ravens only resist with routine what
cowards couch in ritual, this refusal
of yours to perform what outward
sign of courage graces the foreheads
of us who sweat when faced
with beasts privilege poisons until even
bitterness will serve some purpose, demolition
marks with indelible conviction its former existences, every past a passage passion
inhabits and travels, pilgrimages no matter
the shattering of floors and walls,
for being rejected cornerstones the impenetrable
temple of this gem we let
inhabit our flesh, this twisting of
two spirits into one sacrificial victim
silence martyrs but existence permits to
subsist with or without your acknowledgment,
for tacit avoidance or full degradation
only admit a power over you
your ignorance of our love encourages.

__________
¹Pavel Florensky, “[Chapter] XII. Letter Eleven: Friendship”, in The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters: Translated and Annotated by Boris Jakim with an Introduction by Richard F. Gustafson, published at Princeton by Princeton University Press in 1997; page 300.