Empty Altar
Generous beggars sleep on front stoops,
offer ashes and grains to the pillaged vineyard
of my heart. The vines droop, drained and empty,
the ground stained with juice or blood.
There has never been any place so honest.
Surgeons labor over painted veins
to find your body is an orchard and a cemetery.
The garden is just beyone what you can see.
The garden is the curve of your arm
where a statue of Mary sprang up,
cement fresh as new formed grass stalks.
And your heart was an empty altar,
searching for the missing crucifix,
the dried body, and the wafting gauze.
Copyright © Sam Mayhue | Year Posted 2011
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