January 12: Love Poem, Danez Smith, "bare"

Tonight, I need a love poem.  It has been a difficult week, full of loss and tragedy.  Tomorrow evening, I will go to a funeral for a young man of 23 who was in love and about to become a father for the first time.  My friend, the young man's mother, was about to become a grandmother for the first time.

Sometimes, all you can do in life is hang on, hope for someone who understands.  Someone to hold you.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for the possibility of love in darkness.

bare

by:  Danez Smith

for you i'd send my body to battle
my body, let my blood sing of tearing

itself apart, hollow cords
of white knights' intravenous joust.

love, i want & barely know how
to do much else.  don't speak to me

about raids you could loose on me
the clan of rebel cells who thirst

to watch their home burn.  love
let me burn if it means you

& i have one night with no barrier
but skin, this isn't about danger

but about faith, about being wasted
on your name, if love is a room

of broken glass, leave me to dance
until my feet are memory.

if love is a hole wide enough
to be God's mouth, let me plunge

into that holy dark & forget
the color of light.  love, stay

in me until our bodies forget
what divides us, until your hands

are my hands & your blood
is my blood & your name

is my name & his & his