Under the final explosion of sundown,
everybody baptized their heads
in sweat.
Last dance in the gym. Hot breath rang out through the entangling limbs,
thousands of bones
knocking against each other, dancing for warmth.
The wooden floor fought for air beneath their sweltering weight. Howls vibrated
against the dusk.
I thought I saw Jesus
swinging his hair about us, his sticky halo
running down our waists and legs until every mouth wanted
a taste.

You and I
rush outside to catch our breath in the cool fingertips of grass.
I reach up under my ribs and hush my moaning heart’s wide eyes. Your thoughts depend on
lie so that your dress ripples over your skin and clings to your skeleton
but then you, too, hush your burning
core until the both of us are stroking the wild red hides of our insides.

Judgment Day
follows our candlelit souls to the cathedral but we
kneel, bowing our heads over it. Nightfall
settles against the torches hanging along straw walls, they roll on the wood ground.
Everything is flame
there now.

The both of us shed our bodies, our blemish of skin. Slowly finding our dreams
the whiteness finds us like water
until we float
over the screaming smoke