I suppose because it's Sunday
and the air is quiet with penitence,
I think of my spotty history
with church. My lover believes

in God, all the rigmarole of kneeling,
praying, striving for Heaven.
I've never been one for unquestioned faith,
what with a preacher who tells me

I am damned, and me in a pew
with my hands clasped. The sun smears
stained-glass colors upon my hand,
down my leg. But this is all

scientific, fusion, photon,
transpiration. Transubstantiation,
my lover tells me, is a miracle,
the Light of the Lord taken

into the body where the soul
stays out of sight. The deepest pit
of the ocean seems a great place
to hide, and must be the origin

of all those washed-up, unidentified
creatures, those globsters, masses of flesh
carried on the foaming sea, moved
by waves rearranging the shore.

They are mysterious, these cryptids,
revealed only in death. It's natural,
isn't it, to wonder what else might be
hidden? Sunlight cannot penetrate

the fathoms where beasts and beings
make themselves luminous.
If they wandered through our homes,
drifted in and out of doors,

we would call them spirits. Some might
consider them angels. I am not
one of them, neither prophet nor apparition.
If I've learned anything from Dante,

I know that who we love can find us.
I've heard expiation is more
than making amends. I've heard
you have to mean it.