i awoke in the summer the sun struck the earth to furnish us with fire but jealous hands fashioned their cross to a sword brandished their gift as a torch to burn the light to the dead we owe only the truth the human condition surveying the space between the nave i saw my own infernal grave existential imperfections we sat scrawling out prayers on scratched oak chairs bullets bouncing off stonewall saints laid to rest by our forebear at their children at the dissidence of despair this proximal milieu could close the door to the closeness that keeps us inside the spaces that we hide my heart burns cold as life leaves my daughter s eyes i am the mother of the dying the dust the denouement how can absence take my father s house how can nothing take my daughter s life walk me out from this tomb if you are the gate could you make a way come down from that cross hold out your hands so i can see je suis sorti vivant du four crmatoire je suis le tmoin sacr de l glise je suis une mre qui a tout perdu this fire burns your name on my lips and this smoke chokes your song on my throat now let death lynch my lungs i offer what s left of this withering tongue but oh no exit so bright as the light that shines behind the son i leaped through stained glass saints to fall to the garden where we first began 