& this came of it too

The internship was just that helpful: I'm working on a series of poems about it. I think you might like this one, if you read it aloud, but even moreso if you have ever worn or ever loved someone who has worn clerics.

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

This Cotton

I am caught on is from
A Fortress: just a phone call away.
I give the orders.
And it arrives and its small brown box, too light,
Belies the misgivings.

Oh carrier of this holy calling,
You are more than a covering;
You tighten around my neck—
A collar: like the rising at the bell
This tintinnabulation tab -
let rangle me—
I choke on each word.

And I am to become
A Friar: fire tucked
below the belt.
Sustained by alms, the scratching of the sack
Cloth, sloth, wrath, pride, lust, envy, gluttony finally wrapped in a showy snowy shroud.
And I am drunk with power
on the spirits that burned my nose and throat, and finally fell into my gut.

You knit this while I was yet in my mother’s womb, weaving past and present,
Bring me back to!
A woman will convert you and I: in an upstairs room with a machine
Darting back and forth this way and that–
my mother tightened the white, in her affinity, her cotton for my skin,
(She is using the same machine to fix it in place
That once quilted scraps of my youth)
Bolting from the bolt:
Lightening—no, not weighing any less—
Rather, striking again and again,
Leaving crass like glass (see how my skin shows through!) where once was
One tiny stone, one Word among words,
atop a million others battered
against the water and roiling in the foam of hope.
And this cotton testifies that I too started from beneath your feet
But you never would have guessed—
I rose too high too fast—it was the busiest of illusions.

And you will know me, if you see me
A Vicar: vicarious curio, proudly displayed
Lined up behind a man, among men
Who fit better into this weave.

But mostly I am still…

A Woman: of the cloth
This (clo(th)ing) that bears buttons
Like batting and battens down, hatches all around me—
The flames of Pentecost
Or Jeremiah’s fire
Burning from the inside
Burying me in the white heat
And all that remains is to speak over you
And I: ashes to ashes,
dust to dust, and cotton enough to catch them.