languages of hands
the night I first kissed you
I drove home through darkened Adelaide
past the church where a mitred bishop had
smeared my hands with godly— stamped,
sacred, a priest forever
that day the dialect my body spoke
was untranslatable, only now
was I learning the declensions of desire,
the grammar of arousal,
calling on anonymous night
to touch the unmarked parts of me
my god-filled hands still scorched
from holding you, words & wounds
forging stigmatas, the pressure
of your lips was a seedling
pressed into damp earth and watered
only then did night become
my friend with its darkenings,
enfolding angels’ wings,
the tremors, ebbs and flows
into the beating heart
of a god reckless
