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diluted chinese ink poisoning

Becca Rosenthal

i never found the sermon in the suicide
but these are the things that have held my attention:

a name as original fiction
a borrowed idea twice over, a second sin.

this, the face i had before the world was made,
eyes blueblack as a bruise & already knowing
that this must be the way the world hurts god.

you, building shadowboxes in your bedroom,
pot after pot of semi-hot coffee & turning
the corners down.

now, apotheosis by appointment. now,
we know too much. we read highway signs
as semiotic warnings,
we die stillborn to avoid abjection.

i never found the lesson in the murder of five
& now dietrich is dead too but still we keep
the key light
8 feet up and a little to the right.