O Dinah Mo!

O Dinah Mo,
enigma of noon in Corrugate City
where the river of fire flows for eleven months
and then, for a month, it is
a dust highway for the communion of saints
— Lamanites and Jaredites, Mulekites and Nephites.

     You can run.
     You can hold your hands high.
     You can read between the lines.

O Dinah Mo, bleacher prophetess,
consort of Billy Amalek,
centerfielder for the Kingdom of Heaven Pirates,
holding the metal baseball
with green-blue crust of oxidation
and, in the other hand,
as scepter, a fossil leg bone.

Behold! The orange Popsicle into the concrete crack,
melted, staining the cosmos. The baby is presented.
Evening light at harvest.

     As undertakers kiss in the
     back row of the long, shadowed
     Hosea Park church, bundled winter teens 
     in front rows with mothers and
     aunts, by the casket, shoulder to
     elbow in creaking front pews, repeat
     priest prayers to Nuestro Padre and
     Nuestro Senor. Madre de Dios.

O Dinah Mo, the Christian Brothers are on the run.
Dominicans and Franciscans debate in their cells.

Behold! The soil priest eats dirt. The wind priest
mountaintops his blood and bones, hermit of the air.
Kneel at the foot of the altar with the flaming priest.
Bow your head in muttered Latin responses.

O Dinah Mo, the snick of blade,
the thwick, thwack of sword on neck, botched cutting.

Buffet religion, breakfast faith.
Beatific mission, salvific salon.
Blessed sinners.

The consecration of the house.

     Thus, angel’s bread this day
     is made our bread.

     O wondrous gift, indeed.

O Dinah Mo, a restless soul
entered the rock, the cement, the brick.

O Dinah Mo, on the seventh day,
the king commanded his seven chamberlains
to bring the queen to the garden,
wearing her crown royal and nothing else.
This was in the Land of Scorpions.

O Dinah Mo, read the scripture inside scripture.
Pantomime the pain. Each is an open door
in a mansion with many rooms.
You are locked in.

     On the swing-set in 1956,
     sister and brother rise high,
     sing full-throat songs the nuns taught
     as if to fly to a soft caress heaven.

     Today, tonight, and forever.

A galaxy of broken bottle glass, beautiful and sharp.
A blind flight to the continent of future.
A scratch on perfect toddler skin.
A hunger for breathing.

O Dinah Mo, have mercy. I am dying.
Everything is gone. I have nothing to eat.

O Dinah Mo, Larry entered his Gethsemane,
David chose his gunmetal hope.

     Looking for a bright flame.
     Looking for a guiding star.
     Looking for a smooth path.
     Looking for a shepherd.

O Dinah Mo, Heaven-Help-Us had a fixed
abode in a world of trouble and sang bad blues
in morning sun on the second-floor back porch
to community consternation.

Pestilence, burning, blasting.
Dust on the tongue.
Scab, madness, blindness, astonishment.
Locust, worms and all crawling insects.

O Dinah Mo, he knows it is time to go
— breathy behind saloon neons, embraceless,
in dark as whale guts, murky as the lagoon —
down clumsy misconceived streets
and past the loading dock with its rot fruit,
eaten by vermin and stinking to high heaven.

O Dinah Mo, the saint bound himself to
solid ground, to gale speed, to
lightning flash, to fire power, to
profound sea, to wide stone — to
what was before and after, within and
without, above and beneath, to
the right and to the left and at heart.

What needs to be seen needs to be seen.