Holiness holiness holiness

by Jared Pearce

​

​

She stopped loving me when

her kidneys went caput,

her snapped back, her head

whanging like a sawblade,

 

and me with my wrong-cooked

broccoli, my heart holding

words, my pun-making

during Bible time—

 

but the old were so funny,

outliving trees, begatting,

zions and floods and handmaids,

fire cruising from heaven

 

to keep the noise down.

I’ll tread barefoot so as not 

to wake her, so as to keep

the covenant of my hands.