When I say poor, I mean we drank powdered milk,
and our meat slid from the can in jellied squares.
I mean our TV always showed black, white, or grey
even though the screen promised technicolor.
Inside me, color flourished, each ray a wild band,
a length of the spectrum. Bent and separated,
different shades emerged as distinct equations,
and the charm of such symmetry sustained me
as I waited for a signthe milk made cola,
the screen ablaze with color, like holy cards
spread across my bed, each saint or martyr lost
in private rapture. I envied their vision,
that unbending sight stretched from soul to sky,
its radiance burnt through blood, through bone.
Their bodies glowed, infused with the intimacy
of particle and wave, the grace of light, a capacity
to be beyond the visible. Any ordinary thing
that happened around me seemed a miracle:
a scraped stigmata on knee and elbow, a touch
of evening rain, a silent benediction found
inside a newly spun spider web. At night,
my heartbeat raced, recalled each penitent thrill,
each indulgence acquired through grace or invention.
All that summer, I was desperate to escape
my flesh. I drank milky water, trusted its taste,
and its chalky deposit slid through me as I slept
naked on a wool blanket, my skin flushed, my eyes
uplifted, each focused on an elusive halo.
