I mark my flesh
with the cold cross
as Saint Jude observes.

Needle rises, hammer falls,
a tide of quiet fire
through my veins.

I taste the ghost of grace
and it tastes of iron,
it tastes of ash.

Hands fold, hands burn,
my heart a drum in a hollow temple.

The beat is not mine,
the pulse is not God’s,
the rhythm is the absence
that moves beneath my skin.

The rite needs no witness,
the altar needs no praise,
the spirit comes unbidden.

I chant for nothing,
I chant for the ache,
I chant for the vanish
that weeps across my bones.

A trickle.

My faithless stigmata.

The sky does not part,
the bells do not ring,
and still I call, still I rise,
still I fall into the liturgy
of this cold communion.