Mea Culpa

Forgive me if I posted this poem already. Evidence says otherwise.

•Poems from another Country

His voice: a train in the distance. Grackle–
call. Rusty screen door. Smoke-filled memory.

I dream of him wearing a coat of flames,
a blue-tipped divine fire burning as a holy

roller, or perhaps as something other,
a saint Christopher set on the car’s dash,

even though the prayers sent out to him
became redacted retroactively—

I shift his form to the gift of poems
from another country, a book unbound,

now, over time unglued, scattered black birds
each page, each illegible word transferred

down to the first wounded kiss in the bar.
His shaking arms. The dark taste of ash on his tongue.

•