thieves in the temple

exeunt my heart, evangelical god, for you

            are still frosted and feathered somewhere

in the eighties, still fed with the fates of fetuses,

           “fairies,” and the virginities of fatherless girls.

you inhabited the privilege of emily’s metal-mouthed

           jokes about my sister’s teeth, crowded from rickets.

your joy was our makeshift sleeping bags:

            pilled quilts at the lock-in. your sacrificial altar

the long-nosed ladies enduring the singe

           of blue magic in our hair. what do you call

a burning bush that isn’t consumed

           no matter how you flour its mouth with proper vowels?

you were the nine-tails lashing in the deacon’s lustful eye

           hoping to strip us of every one of our hemmed

garments as we played gap-legged in the sanctuary.

           your wrath was the community outreach sweeping past

the trailer park to brimstone the projects up the street.

           i have put away the childish guilt

of never becoming a daughter with your issue of blood,

           Light Bearer, casting shadows with your bleached-out Word.

touch me not; i go to a different Father, though

           you’ll damn me anyway. that isn’t new.

each time i pass the sentinels at your tomb

           they try to convince me you could set me free,

so long as you can fondle me with a separate

           but equal hand—or at least that’s what

they’d have me believe.