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  By Bibi Deitz

The comings and goings of nuns through church doors,
a flash of pinstripe, a pepper dash of a kiss across one cheek,
arms in Oxford sleeves flung round my torso as a pas de deux,
little feet wrapped in leather pit-pattering over beer-sticky floors:
the ways we assemble are woven, here daring, there glowing,
and the sins pile up as firewood, relentless chopping, axe in hand.

We watch trains derail as we do the ballet,
eyes open and wide, mouths slightly ajar, fingers tapping to the beat.
If I broke my leg, if I lit a candle after you’d gone, if
the star of Bethlehem still shone sharp—if a rock can take a lamppost,
if scissors and glue make masterpieces—if infinity, if etcetera—
if leads to then, and then it didn’t seem unnatural to remove my self,
take off my clothes and breathe beside you.

This church is haunted, these doors are unclean,
and still we scratch when it itches, burn when there is fire;
we drive until the gas goes out and dance when it is silent.
Isis to Mary, Guadalupe to Madonna, hear this said—
it was for an instant, a month or some weeks, a time.

Tonight it was loud all around us, tonight the flames licked and teased,
threatened to tower, to engulf, incessant. But you, and I,
our skin particles and flesh, our earlobes and cuticles,
your smoky scent and my rose, the jalapeños we snared once,
the aroma of memory, the distinct dusty smell of the coming and going
we dancers do, the in and out that comes with what was—
you and I, we do-si-doed, I touched your hand, we moved.

I didn’t want to break your glasses; you didn’t crave a blow to my face.
Slender arms outstretched, seven sisters, undulating under the night,
we stepped once and stepped twice and pushed through the doors
like cathedral gates, lighting tapered candles in our wake
before pushing them over to burn the windowsill and whisking ourselves away.