Tell Me So

You're so much talked about.
People think
they know you, that they
have a grasp on you, an angle,
an in.

They use you as a mascot,
a notary,
a patron.

Something you said you cared about
was your name being used.
Vanity.

Other people think you're one of those,
the golden ones who claim you, who seem
to have a claim on you,
who wield your name like a stack of bills
or affidavits,
and look down on, or past,
these others. They think that you might hate them, if you cared
to see them at all.

But this, too,
is a vanity
mirror, which when flipped
upside-down, gives the perspective
which you have:
that those who stamp your name
on their warrants and causes, who drop it
unsubtly in conversations,
who lay loud claim to you--
have, perhaps, acclaim;
but not yours.

And that those who expect
to be passed over or struck down
by a look from you,
are those whose eyes you are seeking,
whose names you wish to claim.
And your claim
is the only one that holds, so
you tell me.

We can't hold
in our heads a true grasp
of you, though we talk much
about you. The way
to know a person
is to know
a person.

Can I talk to you?
I'd really like to know who
You are,
really.

I want to drop these
counterfeit bills
and promissory notes
I've forged or
been handed,
and I want to learn your name.

What it looks like when you sign it
with your own hand
on a king's wall
or the carved-out slab
from a mountain's side.
A hand I can't forge, a script
I can scarcely comprehend.

So tell me.
I want to know, and
I don't know what
I want to know.

So tell me.
Do you love me?
Tell me so.

In the House of the Lord

You come at me with fists
closed rapping, pounding,
blow upon blow upon
 my heart asking
why will it not open?

You come at me with eyes
and lips spitting purpose,
duty, performance
action, principle,
right.

How you must know
I am none of this.
How you can know
and yet permit me
entrance
I wonder.

There are days I catch a breath
of freedom, of the air outside,
that breathes there is
a balm in Gilead.
I take that breath with me
when I step back into this chamber.

It lasts a sweet short while,
while the closeness of this tomb
presses it slowly out
from my lungs, too tired
to hold breath.