Keeping His Liver

To him I am but a mortal

gnawing raw muscle off bones snapped under moonlight,

relying on hides and fur to warm me, so

“My dear,” Prometheus asked,

“Might I engligten thee?”

Acceding, we sat above and behind everyone

human aside the light bearer,

I a nescient wave breaking tall away from a

serenely illuminated ocean.

The sermon’s epicenter bore the homilist’s promise:

the Lord would help them pay the bills.

Was it in fact that inert expanse below left benighted?

Had God lay His grace atop the oblate horizon

unfelt but at heights only heathen waves dare swell?

No. The preacher told all to bet on their fattest cattle,

pray for clearer skies and greener pastures,

and with great faith would they

bear a glorious calf named 

their burning hope.

When the music started, so did the fire.

The flames jumped out of each devotee’s veins

and into the next devout mouth.

Drops of sun were popping from their eyes

and the whole temple glowed underfoot.

Their lungs filled with smoke and ash

but, impossibly, unified,

roared a torrid euphony–

God was calling out

and the stars on the seabed 

scorched to the surface and

concerted an answer

in a tongue I could

almost touch.

The blaze conquered the wall

so I brought my calf to the balcony,

carved into its black derma a manic epitaph,

and named the offering my burning hope.

It caught fire

and streams of light stained by centuries-

old kaleidoscope-love shone

upon and cracked out of it,

and I prayed forgiveness:

accept its faith to supplement my lack thereof–

a final frenzied codicil more than a prayer–

For the preacher spoke of no divinity I could hear,

only in the hands on backs

and sway of the crowd below could I find God.

When only stardust and that divine numen remained,

I quelled back into the sea,

lost where I began,

and let a piece of us settle among the stars beneath.

His God will not punish him 

for bringing me fire,

he will be delivered, surer than 

the white rolling foam and

merciful as my languid return.