I’ve never wanted to feel the hand of God
More than when her cancer returned
And two years later when her soul left
Through her eyes so full of life
That was the first time I cried in years
I must have prayed more than soldiers on
A battlefield hoping for tomorrow but it never came
When I lowered her casket into the ground
Tears fell like bullets from my eyes in a war zone
I’m too scared to remember the victims.
I’ve never wanted to feel the hand of God
more than when I saw my reflection in a mirror
presenting the mask I now wore to public affairs
because grieving wasn’t supposed to last forever.
When I feel the touch of another, I begin to remember her
laughter in the days before she passed away.
And how her kisses tasted like medication and sadness
The twinkle left her eye in late December
by the time my faith became strong enough to pray
to a god that had forgotten my name and turned me away
from altars no longer home to sinners becoming saints
but bigots defending a gospel not meant for my kind, it was too late.
When I buried my wife way before her time,
I wished for the hand of god to rest on my shoulders
like an old friend in the verses. But I was greeted with silence
and sneers from believers burying their voices in frantic worship
on altars, they had desecrated with their hearts filled
with the darkness of humanity and contempt
Jona Nightingale 