Hosanna!

Ai! Ai!
There is no end
to Your excruciating mercies,
is there?

In You I've found
(among a slight few
other things)
that love
is not love
unless it devastates,
unless it breaks the bones
so fiercely
that they attain
a brave new wholeness.

You say to me
"I love you"
and the very scent
of Your breath
opens up a thousand
wounds in me
as though I'd passed
through a hail of gunfire.




Your love is a fire
that transfigures all my nightmares
into glimpses of Your face.