The night of your baptism

The night of your baptism

your native name sounded like a bullet

lodging itself beneath your tongue in a tedious

funeral practice.

Later that night, you would come to hear your

mother cast pleas onto God's palms

in exchange for a son who will know how to make everything rise out of his new name

but beckon tragedy.

You lean into me on a Sunday morning and ask

where on your body it indicates 'dedicated'.

Sometimes you wrestle your body out of

smoke screens and cigar urns as an invitation for sacredness.

You are slowly turning into a testament,

of how to first name a boy after thunder and make

his baptism name a thing you will wake

and sleep to,

how to pluck turbulence from his riotous youth

and bless the girl who rummages through the syllables as intentionally as is intended

of baptism,

how to hold him through tragedy

and release his body into spasms of merry.

It is April again.

The sun is folding itself into a shy epiphany

and the clouds gather to spectate to indicate

the outset of rain.

You lean into me and ask where on your body it

indicates 'dedicated'.

We sleep through the turmoil of a war-torn anatomy

slowly settling into itself.

As gently as your body curls into mine,

I am learning the theatrics of your body

as a recipe for religion.

I have mastered the pattern of your bad habits in the morning.

I have found contents of your ash tray strewn

to my chest on days

you are no vessel enough for dwelling.