CALL ME BELOVED

you can’t just coax it out
like a rabbit from a hole
because it’s not as simple
as a matter of shyness.

I’ve heard people describe it
as if it were wrapped around the planet –
some ethereal atmosphere made up
by sentient and formless thoughts
all knit together – ideas
that want to be expressed,
with an all too human yearning.

maybe it’s when that desire to exist
and take shape grows to become unbearable
that they reach down to the surface
with ghostly outstretched fingers,
touching that metaphysical mystery
somewhere in these tangles of cells.
maybe they take root within us
and incubate, like parasites.

maybe it really is this simple
and ridiculous – that they deign
to call us worthy enough
to carry them within our heads – to
wrestle with the futility, the bruising
and the furious leaps it takes
to splay them out onto the page.

do they wonder, once they’re there
where they can read the letters I’ve used
to construct their blood and bones – where
they can study the breaks, the commas
and pauses that create their face,
do they wonder
was this worth it?