Apocrypha: The Ram Considers Abraham
And what if my god
demanded of me blood
of my own kin,
a ewe, still unsteady
on spindled legs,
for an offering?
What if I led her
to pasture,
to the old wolf
whose hackled shadow
hunkered
amidst the long grass?
What if I turned
only when the screaming
wind became the tongue
of an angel calling back
the Lord’s command
like a man who swallows
fire and lives to tell?
What if, in praise
of that late mercy,
I guided the wolf to the tent
where your firstborn slept
unattended, tangled
in dreams sweet as
the psalm buried
in his mother’s breast?
My Mother’s Corpse
She didn’t need the blanket,
couldn’t feel the cold
of the refrigerated room
to which she’d been consigned
until I could make it
for one final argument
with love’s
misguided ministries;
though it wasn’t sorrow
that came over me
as I stroked her face,
the thin lips that had
both blessed and cursed
me; only wonder
at such stillness,
the chill rising
as if from an autumn
lake I could not swim,
and the heaviness
when I lifted her
at the shoulders
to put her scapular
into its proper place—
one square of stitched
brown wool above her
heart, the other
between the blade
of each smooth shoulder.
Before I eased her down
against the stainless
gurney, I kissed the flesh
at the back of her neck
where blood had gathered
like a bewildered
tribe before a sea
that had not yet parted.
John, the Beloved Disciple
Lord, let me rest my head
above the prison
of your temporal heart,
its blood psalm swift
as winnowed flames
that clear a field
for someday’s harvest.
Let my own heart sing
in faultless synchrony
and so be hidden
in the selfsame song.
Let me take
the Magdalene’s place
at your feet,
caress the bones
that will be shattered
like tablets of stone.
Let me place my hands
upon these wrists
that will lift you
to each staggered breath
in the failing
pre-Sabbath light.
Master, let me
press my mouth
to the tender space
between your ribs
which will be opened
like a sepulchre
that cradles nothing
but a hollowed
winding sheet,
as if the man
once laid there
walked out
into the garden,
unclothed
and unashamed.
Lucifer, Falling
To be suffered
spirit into matter
to be unloosed
from perfection’s tedium
into the wind’s shrill
hammers
into gravity’s harsh tug
toward
to be made flesh
suddenly struck
match-bright
with pain
and with desire
the gift
of your sweet
diminishment
Frank Paino earned an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His fourth book, Dark Octaves, won the Longleaf Press Book Prize and is forthcoming (Winter 2024). His chapbook, Pietà, won the Jacar Press Chapbook Prize and was published in 2023. Frank has received a Pushcart Prize, The Cleveland Arts Prize in Literature, and an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. His poems have appeared in a variety of literary publications, including Crab Orchard Review, Catamaran, North American Review, World Literature Today, Briar Cliff Review, Lake Effect, and a number of anthologies. His website is https://www.frankpaino.net.