On Saturdays I drank pilfered liquor,

kissed boys in backseats, in basements

where the parents were always

out of town. Spent Sundays

penitent at mass. The slender

marble aisle. The cracked leather kneeler.

The congregation sitting and standing,

kneeling and sitting in a stuttering unison

as I replayed the rhythm

of hand on—, tongue on—,

my prayer-bent body arched

with aimless lust. I knew.

I had learned in church: to be bodied

was to be sinful. I gave up milk,

gave up spoons, shaved the thumbnail

down to meet its fleshy bed.

Gave up chicken and carved each night

the pan-fried meat from thigh-bone,

fork-stabbed the knobby joints. Wished myself

up out of my limbs and aches.

Watched my hipbones rising

like the crescent moon. But if this

was wrong, why had they made

Christ’s body so beautiful?

He hung there,

an object lesson in desire

and its aftermath. I listened.

Christ said, put your hand here.