I tell myself the house is only wood,
old nails, a roof that leaks when God feels bored.
But every dusk it tilts—a confessional door
ajar—inviting and accusing. You stood
at the kitchen counter, haloed the way
cheap bulbs sanctify a lover leaving.
I watched the terrazzo patterns weave
our shadows, even as they pulled away.
Forgive me—though I never learned for what.
My tongue still tastes of penny metals, sin’s
small currency. “We’re fine,” I said, the thin
lie cracked like plaster in a too-cold spot.
And just like that, the evening filled the room,
light receding from a familiar wound.

I write this with the sun behind my back,
flat on a chipped green table—rough Formica
cold as a hospital tray. I stalled, the brightest
flecks reflecting light like sins I can’t retract.
“Can you be saved?” you asked. Christ—your knack
for dissecting me—and my maniacal
habit of drafting grief into a mythical
shape—left me split between attack
and retreat. What’s needed, I suppose,
is not revision—just the truth: how women
draw us in with that unguarded pose,
the grace note just before the guillotine. Again
I tried to mend the poem, stitch its prose—
but what won’t live won’t rise. Amen. Amen.