Jim Rioux

Gnosis

Behind my eyes, slugs haul the moon,
my spine a godsnapped whip…The sky
knows no language— examine then
these specimens: my blood hum-hungry,
climbing high into the night, the earth
a scorched-black bible…I confess
only to the heresy of sloth,
the orthodoxy of oblivion.
I’ll say lonely, but mean something
else: days hinged clutch by clutch
with alien hands, the mind blooming
hollow over specificity…
Lord, my tongue is pierced with bird bones—
forgive me then these singing teeth.