Stigmata

My god begins from wound,
palm flat on wood—a point
in the universe, each brick a semi
coloured trauma, a straight line from star
to distance, tree root to mouth opened
in carnal knowledge. The wound
is a bullet learning the reshaping
of a body discovering softness
is a country that has stopped
careening into heaven. My god
is a nuclear, formless sludge
dripping from wooden beam
like sunshine in water, a red puddle
of wine on the bar floor & each cup
is communing with where the hurt
should be if the body can feel itself
break again, against the door,
splintering like light into a thousand
rainbows but my god, I'm a man numb,
shrieking into the wounded palm.
I mean the maggots crawl out of torso
instead of water & bile, & I slit the door
wider with my beak so I can peck
the needle eye where the poor find path.
My god is a church without roof,
crude oil poison on his lips & who
can take his crown from the birth canal
of light pouring down from his own hand
& he will not speak; my god will not

Stigmata

speak to me. I watch his hand clutch
the rust in the nail until decay peels itself
from language & everywhere I turn
is a beginning, a new way of pushing out
of pupae, wings still fresh with rapture,
still encased in the thin cobwebs
of old tombs. I mean my god is a half
finished light in a camera lens,
a semiconductor that drank lightning
—all I've learnt about my god
is trauma & dust.