Eaton Hamilton

A poem from Love Will Burst into a Thousand Shapes.  Image: JEH: candles in a Quebec church

Sedona, Arizona

Nuns in white habits, swinging crosses

climbing red rocks

conversing in German, hands grasping sizzling rock

I imagined their lives at night

oppressive Phoenix heat

sweat blooming between breasts

ashen bloodless thighs

(the shock of springy hair, moist petals)

women in dark solitudes

rubbing hard beads

At the Frank Lloyd Wright church

candles flickered behind red vases hot with wishes

Please make Richard concede and sign all the papers

Please sell my house in AZ

You on the rocks getting further away

untouchable

(loneliness is part of this story)

The outcroppings in the rocks you clung to were not even

as large as your nail beds

Contrails shredded clouds

A vortex Juniper spiraled above me

You spidered too small to see

I heard you shout my name from the apex of Bell Rock

At the church, a woman curled her hand around red vase

light through fingers

the way, at moments, women in love go transparent

Harsh sun on my skin

Rosaries swaying like clocks

In the churchyard, I put my hand through Jesus’s ribs

The body could refuse refuge, the body could refuse

time and lethargy. The body could refuse

anything that binds it to earth