Applying Psalms 121 to a Gentile

     Samuel A. Adeyemi

 

Some years ago, I began shredding

my tongue, crumbling the chapel

 

once built in my mouth.   I retired

my eyes watching the hills—they sang,

 

help will somebody water down, but daily

I died of thirst.   Once, I tried to fetch God

 

with language; my voice—white ink

stitching white paper.   There were no

 

angels to colour my ache.   Perhaps

I'm oblivious to the dialect of heaven,

 

I gave God a wound to heal & he placed

a ribbon around the bleed.   As if to say,

 

look at your blood, pray & it will blue into

a stream.   But I do not know what to

 

weave from faith.   Prayer reminds me

what absence tethers me from,

 

when I fold myself to kneel as a saint,

a lily wilts before my teeth.   As if to say,

 

crawl to your mother's feet & confess your

unbelief.   How do I say I am a church bell

 

swaying without its tongue?   Her heart—

a holy book my chaos must not set on fire.