Conversion

    All day， we loitered at the throat of the penny arcade¹

    to hear how the fisherman's cast had taken the eye of Vilas

    Puchomsky， a pain radiating down to the sexual curve.

    Girls who had been prom queens， corsages of gallica roses

    with crowning pink buds pinned to our blouses， teetered

    on lives of uncloistered want to hear how the hook

    had entered the pulp²， tearing the flesh like a litchi nut

    with the force of a swift and ready conversion³.

    At dusk， the fly-speckled marquee flickered⁴ with inconstant

    love；

    and our boys suckled long-necked colas and pilsners，

    and we asked them to hug us all the tighter while the nuns⁵

    sang

    from the hill， "Le Dieu Qui Nous Aime Bien，" for it seemed

    that the boy's name had called his fate into the world，

    the line cutting through the air like the wing of a hawk⁶，

    his face buried in a shirt of bruised⁷ muslin.

    And later， over the cracked and rutted road home， his story

    came to us like a voice speaking from behind a steel grate，

    a blue light hovering⁸ above the lake's teal horizon.

    One day at school， he removed his eye and touched us，

    tiered like the blessed and the damned in the bleachers

    behind the parochial school， the glass eye sucking our arms

    where lips might have gone， a touch like benediction——

    a taste of terror with some pleasure in it， a pleasure

    already sown with remorse⁹ and the seeds of turning away.

    But at night， we prayed to a god with a foraging¹⁰ heart，

    a god with a silvering face， rippling¹¹ his luminous¹² skin——

    the line gilt¹³ along the line's trajectory¹⁴， the plummet¹⁵ like shot——

    thinking how grace must enter the body like this

    as we slipped out under the nameless bowl of stars

    to feel the hunger of our own darkness：

    the sweep and whisper of the line，

    the suck and gape¹⁶ of the eyeless socket¹⁷，

    the god who reels us in.