This Cup

I litter the mulch with another empty bottle.
I steal from my enemies in ever-shrinking measures.
I trick myself to sleep with iniquity and poison,

the Father of Lies’s ants crawling up my legs,
pissing in the closet, the hallway, the help room,
lost in the shadow maze leading to the toilet.

How can we ever find our way back to you,
now that we’ve sworn our names and faces to the dark,
wandering dirty and long in crowns of air?

Uncommon wisdom leaps through the clouds,
organs ballooned up and slashed into ribbons,
pins in my heart, my ass, my pelvis,

wine stains of hope on this carpet of sinew, shades of sad
evenings flaring from our weakness. Jesus Christ,
praying in the garden, gnaws on our ruin, this filthy, wicked gnarl.