HOSEA 4:3
Therefore doves are holy. Therefore seek repentance
at buckshot scattering. Therefore sing & see oaks
bend & creak their branches in the summer wind passing
through them concretely—warmer than before now.
Therefore the melody you make joins the choir of them.
Therefore know the deer’s patience, then their confusion
at air’s east to west shift, hunters’ blinds sighting them.
Therefore understand grace Baptists seek each Sunday
is Baptists breaking free from the pain inside them
the same way whitetails flee from nearby predators.
Therefore Blizzards held upside down at Dairy Queen
are described as “frozen.” Therefore Exodus must be
a trip taken next for some barbecue picked from the pit
at Cooper’s. Therefore notice the spit of the man
dipping snuff outside Circle K—home on furlough
for Christmas—& discover wisdom. Therefore find
our dead clambering up sandstone banks & onto pristine
lawns of the waterfront wealthy who take property
as the drought takes its fist to the land, blackening
every cedar clearing. Therefore crystal meth’s weight.
Therefore Christ’s wounds witnessed. Therefore fires
& trucks sent to quench pasture burns after cigarette ends
tossed from cars carelessly become highway signage.
Therefore speed limits peak. Therefore don’t believe this.
Therefore any of it. Therefore I am the Body & you are
the Spirit, & we both require each other to be in each hand-
worn hymnal. Therefore we coexist beside half & whole
notes scribbled thick, carelessly during lengthy sermons.
Therefore angelic hosts gathering on steeples—at the tips
of them lit by sunlight as if wicks—praise & curse both of us
for the things we don’t say. Therefore what we don’t say.
Therefore each word of it. Therefore our only fears now:
does __________ still love me? & with what conviction?
& for what duration? Therefore will __________ risk it?
Therefore spheres of lead sift through their bodies unchanged.
Therefore each bird’s a sieve through which metal passes.
Therefore becomes a symbol for generations with its nest
of eggs left in the brush beside it. Therefore decomposing
with hatchlings needing it. Therefore though they survive
despite their needing it. Therefore doves are holy.
