by Somoshree Palit
God, let’s be children again.
A moment of scorn, a moment of joy :
Let’s stroll in the garden in bouts of rain
For today, become a carpenter’s boy.
For today, let us forget the pain —
I’ll pluck some orchids for your hair,
I’ll forget my hands have the mark of Cain
We’ll smell Eden upon the desert air.
God, let’s be children, you see
I’ll chase you round, if you’ll chase me.
God, let’s be children once more.
You’ll close your eyes and count to ten;
You’ll find the sleeve of the shirt I wore
We’ll laugh together, hidden from men.
And if you couldn’t, you’d call my name,
And I would ache for your return —
For what is Desire in a defeated game?
How shall I win when I am bound to turn?
Why find your church in the streets of Rome?
Hold my jaws. Dream of home.
God, let’s be children, I plead.
I’ll tell you a story as you hold my hand.
I’ll tell you, how love, you are my creed,
My crusade, my burial, my Promised Land.
As I sculpt pagan gods sit by me,
Teach me how you made a dog
With the same hands that you sculpted the sea,
Take out my speck, I’ll take out your log.
Carpenter’s boy, with the cross in Rome,
Did you smell the wood, and think of home?
God, let’s be children, I swear
I’ll love you better but I can’t love you more.
This time around I’ll learn to wear
Your jaws on my crown and crawl on four.
Where is my home where I belong —
Where is my first born anguished bleat?
Where is my epitaph, my softest song?
Where is your throat? Where are your feet?
Were you hurt when you held me by the horn,
The last born child of a first born scorn?
God, let’s be children, pray tell —
If Omnipotence works like a game of dice.
Now you’d be all, now you’d be none,
Now you’d be a god that was crucified twice.
They name you Rabbi — to name you ‘Mine’
I’d chew on the canines I fear to pet.
I would eat your sins, be your wine,
God make me holy — just, not yet.
God, why can’t we be children again?
Remember how our days were like?
Now that you are a child of God,
Your scorn and frolic look alike.
Carpenter’s boy, Mary’s son,
Did you feel like Atlas bearing your cross?
Rabid dog, my light of the Sun,
How shall I name this grief of your loss?
A martyred Lamb.
A martyred Son
A fallen bride.
And God undone.
God, why won’t you be a child for me?
You seem so far away — who moved?
I’d like to become a god and see
Broken spines and remain unmoved.
What submission had licked the ocean floor
That she parted in two for Moses’ staff?
If you had held my mouth and said no more
I’d have parted myself for a chance of your laugh.
Your act of god was rising to the skies.
My act of devotion was kissing your thighs.
God, where you had been born a child,
Where dark cathedral carols were sung,
Had you flinched at the sight of a twitching dog
I would be the meat to palate your tongue.
Let us leave for snow-capped peaks in the South,
A novel Trinity with the Harlot and Son,
And the Holy Spirit like froth in my mouth —
A Christ for all and a Christ for none.
You said Love thine enemies so they maybe few :
Like a dog I obeyed. I loved you.
So when you become a child again
Read your Bible upon my intestine.
Your nails in my gut won’t give me pain,
I’ll wear a girdle of your ivory spine.
I’ll hold your phalanges between my lips
And call them cigars. Futile. Divine.
On your sacrum would be my acrylic paint
Pthalo, and lime — I’ll paint a vine.
They’ll take my carpus and my corpse
And read sermons to me beside your shrine,
For all your psalms you cannot cease
This divine alchemy of the semi-divine.
Each vertebrae would count to seven,
The femurs I’ll keep for me to dine.
I’ll make a chalice of your parietal lobe
I’ll drink and know your holy design.
I’ll kneel as a devotee before you God,
Like a vulture, I’ll pronounce you mine —
I’ll make rosaries out of your pearly teeth
And gulp them down with wine.